New Mosque, Kaş

Known locally as Kilise Camii, or Church Mosque, the New Mosque in Kaş began life as a Greek Orthodox church built in the nineteenth century on the peninsula side of the town center. An inscription on its carved stone entrance records a date of 1881. After the population changes of the early twentieth century the building was converted for use as a mosque, though it kept traces of its earlier identity: patterned floor decoration in the Greek style remains visible inside, and the small garden beside the building still holds old water wells. Standing on the former hospital road opposite Kaş's Culture House, the mosque is one of the more modest but telling reminders, in the old town, of the mixed Greek and Turkish past that shaped Kaş before the building became a mosque serving the local Muslim community.