High on the cliffs of Pontus, carved into the rock above the forests of Trabzon, the Monastery of Panagia Soumela has stood for more than sixteen centuries as a beacon of Orthodox faith. For the Pontian Greek people it is more than a monument. It is the spiritual heart of a community scattered by exile yet still bound together by the Virgin Mary.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate announced that Turkish authorities have once again granted permission for a Divine Liturgy to be celebrated at the monastery. The service will take place on August 23, 2025, the day of the Apodosis of the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, known in Greek tradition as the Enniamera tis Panagias. Metropolitan Andreas of Saranta Ekklisies will preside, according to the official statement issued on August 16.
This will be the second consecutive year that the service is moved from its traditional date of August 15 to August 23. In 2023, after much controversy and protests from nationalist groups, the liturgy did take place on August 15 with Patriarch Bartholomew presiding. But in 2024, Turkish authorities began enforcing the postponement, pushing the liturgy to August 23 and limiting attendance to around one hundred people. That same pattern has been confirmed again for 2025.
The reason lies in a policy change introduced in 2022, when the Turkish government officially declared August 15 as Trabzon Conquest Day, commemorating the fall of the Empire of Trebizond to Sultan Mehmed II in 1461. Until then, the conquest had been marked on October 26. By shifting it to August 15, authorities placed the nationalist celebration directly on top of the Orthodox Feast of the Dormition, creating a deliberate overlap that has fueled annual disputes.
Since then, nationalist figures such as retired Admiral Cihat Yaycı and allied political groups have pressured the government to restrict the liturgy, claiming that Orthodox prayers on the conquest anniversary dishonor Ottoman history. Newspapers and commentators have described the August 15 service as a provocation. Against this backdrop, moving the liturgy to August 23 has become the state’s compromise.
For Orthodox Christians, the new date is not random. August 23 is the Apodosis, or leavetaking, of the Dormition feast. In Greek tradition this day is also called the Enniamera tis Panagias, the Nine Days of the Virgin Mary. Liturgically it holds significance, but for many pilgrims the change underlines the growing limits on religious freedom at Soumela.
The monastery itself has always mirrored the fate of the Pontian people. Founded in the fourth century, abandoned after the population exchange of 1923, restored as a museum, it was only in 2010 that liturgies were allowed again under special permission. In those early years, thousands of pilgrims filled the mountainside when Patriarch Bartholomew celebrated. Now, with permissions tightened and attendance shrinking, the contrast is stark.
For Pontians in Greece, America, and across the diaspora, Soumela lives on not only in history but in practice. The monastery in Kastania, northern Greece, was founded after 1923 to preserve the tradition. The Pontian associations in Philadelphia and around the world still place the Virgin of Soumela at the center of their August commemorations. Each time prayers return to the cliffside monastery in Trabzon, even on a delayed date and with restrictions, it is a reminder that faith and memory remain unbroken.
Featured image: Panagia Soumela, Turkey. Image courtesy of Eleftherios Konstans.
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