Kilise Mosque Güzelyurt

Kilise Mosque in Güzelyurt, a district of Aksaray province in the Cappadocia region, carries a layered religious history, having served in turn as a church, a monastery, and finally a mosque. It is also known locally as "Küçük Ayasofya Kilisesi," the Small Hagia Sophia Church, a name reflecting its resemblance to the great Byzantine church in Istanbul. The building dates to the Byzantine era, when Güzelyurt, then known by its older Greek name, was home to a substantial Orthodox Christian population that remained in the area until the population exchange of the early twentieth century. After the local Christian community departed, the structure was converted for Muslim worship, with a minaret added to the existing church fabric rather than a new building being erected in its place. This transformation makes Kilise Mosque a striking example of the religious and demographic shifts that reshaped Cappadocia, where several former churches across the region were similarly repurposed as mosques.