Çepni Church

Armenians, one of the indigenous peoples of Anatolia, called the region in Cappadocia stretching from Kayseri to Sivas and from the Kızılırmak river to the Tohma Stream in the south as Kamirk until the middle of the 20th century, and named a settlement between Kayseri and Sivas as Kamirk or Kamrag. They lived in this town, which was named Gemerek during the Ottoman period, until the 1970s. Surp Sarkis Armenian Church in Çepni Town of Gemerek, a district of Sivas city today, is a cultural property owned by Çepni Municipality. Surp Sarkis Church, which is still the only Christian religious architecture in and around Gemerek, was rebuilt in the 19th century. Although the church, which was left unclaimed since the beginning of the 20th century, with the decrease of Armenians from Chepni, lost its original function, it was not converted into a mosque. Apart from some interventions in the restoration in the 1950s, no changes were made in the spatial context. The development of cultural awareness in recent years has brought about the restoration of the Surp Sarkis Church, which remains alive in the memory of the Chepni people, to gain a new function. The church was built entirely of cut stone and has a three-nave basilical and cruciform plan. This church, which was largely preserved in a rural area and survived until the 21st century, draws attention with its architecture that reflects the attention of structures in rich urban areas such as Istanbul, Sivrihisar and Kayseri, despite its small scale.