The 7 Churches of Revelation are individual cities located in the west of the Anatolian Peninsula, in Turkey. And they hold a very profound meaning for Christian believers. At Turquía Exclusiva, as with the rest of the Mandala Tours agencies, we are specialists in pilgrimage trips, and these are precisely the main destinations of one of our circuits and some of our cruises. Here we tell you more about it.
7 Churches, 7 Locations
When speaking of the 7 Churches of Revelation, we are referring to the famous book written by John of Patmos in the 1st century, also known as the Revelation of Jesus Christ, being the last of the books that make up the New Testament.
In this book, which had an enormous impact and influence in the Middle Ages, John writes seven letters to the Christian communities of seven cities in Asia Minor. At that time, the term church did not refer to the building, but to the community of the faithful. Therefore, a circuit through the 7 Churches of Revelation is not an urban route through seven temples, but a broader circuit through 7 different and distant cities. Those church-cities are:
- Smyrna: the third largest city in Turkey
- Pergamum: corresponding to present-day Bergama
- Thyatira: corresponding to present-day Akhisar
- Sardis: today, a small village of several thousand inhabitants, called Sart
- Philadelphia: now vanished, its archaeological remains are next to the city of Alaşehir
- Laodicea: likewise, today it is only an archaeological site near Denizli
- Ephesus: one of Turkey’s major tourist destinations, next to Selçuk
Therefore, to take a circuit through the 7 Churches of Revelation, it is necessary to be equipped with a good vehicle, as the distances are long: between Smyrna and the furthest location (Laodicea) there are 230 km by road. The ideal place to start is Smyrna, as it has a large airport that serves it. Another option would be Kusadasi, a port with intense international cruise traffic, near Ephesus.
And of course, it is necessary to have a good guide who knows how to interpret all these places, putting them in the context of the first century of our era, when in those cities there were Christian communities persecuted by the imperial authority, as it was a religion that was still prohibited.
In many cases, pilgrimage groups have their own priest, often the one who initiated the idea of visiting these places. And that fills each destination with spiritual meaning, with readings of the corresponding passages from the book and masses in designated locations.
An Additional Destination, with Our Cruises
In addition to the circuit through the 7 Churches of Revelation by road, it is possible to add one more destination, closely linked to this theme: the island of Patmos, belonging to Greece. And Turquía Exclusiva can also take you there, as we have cruises through the Aegean islands in our catalog. The most famous are Mykonos and Santorini, but the routes can pass through many others. Among them, Patmos, where Saint John was able to write his book.
In fact, on this small and picturesque island is the Cave of the Apocalypse (also called the Cave of the Revelation), in the historic center of Chora. And it is part of the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian, built in the 11th century and all declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Although there is no full consensus on whether that was really the cave in which Saint John of Patmos wrote his book during his exile, tradition has passed it down from generation to generation. And for its value, not so much monumental as symbolic, every Christian interested in the subject should visit it, thus discovering the small altar and the Orthodox works of art that illustrate the Revelation and the passages narrated in the book.
