Normally churches are built on the surface but there are special cases when you gotta go deep underground to reach the altar. Cave churches are real and they are phenomenal! I would imagine the atmosphere in these places is nothing like your usual above-ground chapels. Did you know that some of the oldest churches and monasteries were actually built inside caves? There’s no better place to speak to your god than a hole in a huge rock or a side of the mountain. And that’s not me being sarcastic, I genuinely think that.
If you had a chance to visit some of these places, please, let us know what it was like! And meanwhile, here are 17 astonishingly beautiful churches, monasteries, chapels, and other religious structures built inside caves!
1) Mihalich Cave Church, Bulgaria
2) Callao Cave Chapel, Philippines
3) Troglodyte chapel at the bottom of the Gorges Galamus, France
4) Chapel Of the Blessed King, Wieliczka Salt Mine, Krakow, Poland
5) Temppeliaukio Church, Helsinki
6) Jonas caves, Auvergne, France
7) Serbian Orthodox Church in Coober Pedy, Australia
8) Troglodyte Sainte-Marie Madeleine Holy Cave, Sainte-Baume Mountain, Provence, France
9) The Cave Churches of Goreme, Turkey
10) Panagria Hrysospiliotissa, under the Temple of Dionyso, Greece
11) The Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá, Zipaquirá, Colombia
12) Monastery of the Temptation, West Bank city of Jericho
13) St Samaans Church, Mokattam village, Egypt
14) Piedigrotta church, Pizzo, Italy
15) Cave Church of St. Peter, Hatay, Turkey
16) Agioi Saranta, Protaras, Cyprus
17) Cave Chapel at Modderpoort Prior, South Africa
