Guide
The date to look for at St. Anna, the small church known in Trabzon as Küçük Ayvasıl, is carved over its door: an inscription recording a repair made in 884-885, in the reign of Basil I. A repair inscription is not a founding date, and the provincial directorate of culture and tourism, whose page is the source here, says only that this is one of the oldest churches in the city — but the building was already standing and already needing work in the ninth century. A Byzantine relief is set at the same entrance.
It is a three-aisled basilica without a narthex, and the aisles are rounded both inside and out. There is a crypt below the floor. In the naos two T-shaped piers stand together with two columns carrying Ionic capitals, and the walls keep remains of frescoes belonging to later periods than the inscription.
