Myra & St. Nicholas Museum

The Ancient City of Myra is especially famous for the Lycian Period rock tombs, the Roman Period theater and the Byzantine Period Saint Nicholas Church (Aziz Nikolaos Kilisesi) (Santa Claus). 

Ancient theaters were dedicated to Dionysos, and Dionysos often went to the underworld to visit his mother Semele. Lycian made a perfect sense of this mythological story by building their tombs and the theater next to each other. The tombs are mostly in “house type”, where wooden Lycian houses were imitated on rock, some of them have reliefs that still can be seen clearly. The ancient theater is also very well preserved and recent excavations revealed that this was built over an existing Hellenistic theater. One can see the chapel that is also recently excavated just outside the theater.

dventurous visitors should also visit the acropolis hill, for the sake of the early walls, ancient steps climbing up to it and the magnificent view of the Demre plain.

The second great necropolis of Myra is on the eastern part of the Demre valley, rarely visited by anyone, however, there are also beautiful tombs and reliefs in this area. One must be careful as there are no steps or railing to climb these tombs.

Myra lost its importance since the seventh century, due to earthquakes, floods, the alluvium brought by the Demre Stream (Demre Çayı) and Arab raids and became a village in the 12th century. Today’s ruins are the theater on the southern skirt of the acropolis and the rock tombs on both sides. According to the research, apart from the Roman Period walls, which are quite intact today, it is possible to find Hellenistic city wall remains on and around the acropolis hill. 

Because Myra, the capital of the Lycian state in the fifth century AD was the city where St Paul and his friends stopped. The former city has a special place in the Christian world. 

St. Nicholas Church and Museum, Demre

“At the west edge of the village of Demre is the famous church of St. Nicholas of Myra, the goal in former times of pilgrims, now of tourists,” writes Prof. George Bean. St. Nicholas, the Bishop of Myra, was famous for the miracles he performed, which earned him the name “Nicholas the Wondermaker.”  

He is the patron saint of Orthodox Christians, as well as the patron saint of children, merchants, sailors, and scholars, among many others. Although little is known of the historical Saint Nicholas, there is little doubt that he lived and died at Myra. St. Nicholas Church in Demre is an ancient East Roman church dedicated to the saint and believed to be built above the burial of St. Nicholas. The saint’s sarcophagus is located inside the church and has Cyrillic inscriptions on it, carved during the restorations carried out by Russians in the 19th century. In the 11th century, the sarcophagus was desecrated by a group of merchants who took part of the saint’s remains to their hometown of Bari, Italy – thus, the saint is also known as “Nicholas of Bari.” However, St. Nicholas is probably most famous across the world for the historical inspiration behind “Santa Claus.”