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Trabzon, Turkey —If its ancient walls could talk, Sümela Monastery in eastern Turkey would have quite a few stories to tell.
Since its founding in the 4th century CE by some of the earliest Christians to arrive along the Black Sea coast, the shrine has witnessed the evolution of the Roman Empire into the Byzantine era, the rise of the Ottomans, the struggle for Turkish independence after World War I, decades of vandalism and neglect, and an almost miraculous resurrection in modern times.
