Tarihi Balatlar Kilisesi

Balatlar Church or Sinope Koimesis Church[1] is a Byzantine church in the Yusufoğlu Range in the Ada neighborhood of Sinop. Covering an area of ​​3.062 m², the church is a rectangular basilica built in 660 AD. This building complex, which is thought to have served as a bath in its first construction in the Roman period, was built between the 6th and 7th centuries. Church in the 11th-13th centuries. Between the centuries, the grain warehouse was left to the local Christian people after the Anatolian Seljuks or the Ottomans took over the city, and it was turned into a monastery where Mary and Archangel Michael are commemorated together. In the 1920s, it was used as a cemetery as well as worship.[2]

The strong walls and carriers of the Roman structure were cut by carving, and architectural elements such as niches, doors, arches, benches, windows and holy springs were created in these places in line with religious needs. Apart from this, it has been determined that the local Christian people under the Ottoman rule tried to make maximum use of the monumental Roman period building remains in which the monastery was built, in order to bury as many people as possible. After the fall of the Byzantine state, many parts of the existing Roman structure were modified and converted into churches by the local Christian population.