Anatolia, the land of today’s Turkey, gave the early church many of its greatest names. Seven of the most famous saints born in Turkey are Saint Paul (Tarsus), Saint Nicholas (Patara), Saint Polycarp (probably Smyrna, today’s İzmir), Saint Timothy (Lystra or Derbe), Saint Basil the Great (Caesarea, today’s Kayseri), Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (Cappadocia) and Saint John Chrysostom (Antioch, today’s Antakya).
When people think about the saints of the early church, they usually think of Italian, Spanish or Egyptian figures: the bishops of Rome, the great names of the West and the desert fathers. Fewer people know how many of the most important Christians of the first four centuries were born on what is now Turkish soil.
I am not talking about the people who came to Asia Minor and worked here. That list is huge and includes Apostle John, Philip, Andrew and many more. I mean people who were really born on this land, whose mothers and fathers lived here and whose first words were spoken in Anatolia.
The seven saints of this article lived between the first and the early fifth century, from Tarsus in the south to Antioch in the southeast. They include an apostle and his closest helper, bishops, theologians, a monastic reformer and one of the most famous preachers in Christian history.
You can meet many other saints of this land in my older lists of Important Christian People of Anatolia, Important Christian People of Asia Minor and Famous Christian People of Asia Minor. Let’s have a look at where each of the seven was born, what they did for the church and what you can still see of their birthplaces today.
Saints Born in Turkey at a Glance
- Saint Paul: born in Tarsus, Cilicia (Mersin Province), between about 5 BC and 5 AD.
- Saint Nicholas: born in Patara, Lycia (Antalya Province), traditionally in 270 AD.
- Saint Polycarp: birthplace not recorded, probably Smyrna (İzmir), around 69 AD.
- Saint Timothy: born in Lystra or Derbe, Lycaonia (central Turkey, south of Konya), early first century AD.
- Saint Basil the Great: born in Caesarea Mazaca (Kayseri), around 330 AD.
- Saint Gregory of Nazianzus: born near Nazianzus, Cappadocia (Aksaray Province), around 329 AD.
- Saint John Chrysostom: born in Antioch (Antakya, Hatay Province), around 347 AD.
1. Saint Paul of Tarsus
The most influential Christian after Jesus himself was born on Turkish soil. Paul tells it with his own words in Acts 22:3: “I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia.” In another speech he calls Tarsus “no mean city” (Acts 21:39). Scholars think he was born between about 5 BC and 5 AD.
Tarsus was rich trading city and a famous center of learning with its own academy. One of its Stoic philosophers, Athenodorus, was the teacher of Emperor Augustus. Paul was a Jew and a Pharisee, and he was also a Roman citizen from birth (Acts 22:28). He worked as a tentmaker (Acts 18:3).
While he was still young, his family sent him to Jerusalem to study with Gamaliel, one of the great teachers of Jewish law. After his conversion, Paul came back home. Acts 9:30 says the believers sent him to Tarsus and later Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for him and brought him to Antioch (Acts 11:25-26).
These are often called Paul’s “silent years,” because we know almost nothing about them. They probably lasted several years, but nobody knows exactly how long.
Tarsus is in Mersin Province today, between the cities of Mersin and Adana. Saint Paul’s Well in the old quarter is traditionally linked with his family’s house. Saint Paul’s Church is now a museum where Christian services are sometimes held. Cleopatra’s Gate is the only ancient city gate still standing, named after Cleopatra’s famous visit to meet Mark Antony in 41 BC.
In addition, the Tarsus Museum and a stretch of Roman road are worth a visit. The Berdan River, the Cydnus of ancient writers, still flows past the city. You can read more about him in my articles 7 Interesting Facts About Saint Paul of Tarsus and Cities Visited by Apostle Paul in Asia Minor.
2. Saint Nicholas of Patara and Myra
The real Saint Nicholas, the bishop whose story grew into the legend of Santa Claus, was born in Patara on the Lycian coast. Tradition gives his birthday as 15 March 270 AD. Patara was main port of Lycia and for a time its capital. It was also one of the leading cities of the Lycian League, with three votes in its assembly.
Patara also has its own Bible story, too. At the end of his third journey, Apostle Paul changed ships here on his way to Jerusalem (Acts 21:1-2), about two centuries before Nicholas was born.
According to tradition, Nicholas was born to wealthy Christian parents who died in an epidemic when he was young, and he gave his inheritance to the poor. The most famous story tells of a poor man who could not pay dowries for his three daughters. Nicholas secretly threw a bag of gold through their window on three nights. This story is the seed of the gift-giving that Santa Claus carries today.
Nicholas became bishop of Myra, today’s Demre, about 60 kilometers east of Patara as the crow flies. By tradition he died on 6 December, around 343 AD, which is why his feast day is 6 December. His name appears on some early lists of the bishops at the Council of Nicaea in 325, but nobody who was at the council mentions him, so his attendance is uncertain.
He was buried in Myra, and his tomb became one of the great pilgrimage places of Christian Anatolia. In 1087, sailors from Bari in Italy took his main bones from the church and carried them home, where they still rest in the Basilica di San Nicola. Later, Venetian sailors took the remaining fragments to Venice.
Today you can visit both towns. Patara is one of the finest ancient sites on our Mediterranean coast, with the restored assembly hall of the Lycian League and a lighthouse built under Emperor Nero around 60 AD, one of the oldest surviving lighthouses in the world. If you travel on the Lycian coast, I totally recommend to visit Patara.
In Demre, the Byzantine Church of Saint Nicholas stands where the church of his time stood, and Myra’s rock tombs and theater are close by. By the way, Apostle Paul also passed from Myra as a prisoner on his way to Rome. I wrote about it in The Seven Stops on Paul’s Voyage to Rome in Acts 27.
3. Saint Polycarp of Smyrna
No early source records where Polycarp was born. He spent his long life in Smyrna, today’s İzmir, and he was bishop there for decades, so most writers count him as a son of the city. Most historians date his birth to around 69 AD.
He was the bridge between two generations. Irenaeus and Tertullian say that Polycarp had been a disciple of John the Apostle. As an old man he taught Irenaeus himself, who later became bishop of Lyon and one of the most important theologians of the second century. Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians still survives.
Late in his life, he traveled to Rome to talk with Bishop Anicetus about the date of Easter. They could not agree, but they parted in peace, and Anicetus let him celebrate the Eucharist in his own church. That was a great honor.
In 155 or 156 AD, Polycarp was arrested and brought in the stadium of Smyrna. The Proconsul urged him to curse Christ, and he answered: “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?”
He was condemned to be burned. According to the Martyrdom of Polycarp, written by his own church, the fire did not consume him, so an executioner stabbed him with a dagger.
In İzmir today, the Catholic Church of Saint Polycarp keeps his memory alive, and the excavated Agora of Smyrna shows the Roman city of his time. When I guide in İzmir, I and my guests often visit the Church of Saint Polycarp. I wrote his full story in my article Saint Polycarp of Smyrna.
4. Saint Timothy of Lystra
Timothy was Apostle Paul’s most trusted companion. Acts 16:1 says Paul came to Derbe and Lystra and found a disciple there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish believing mother and a Greek father. So he was born in Lystra or Derbe, two small towns of Lycaonia in central Anatolia. Lystra is the usual choice.
The faith of his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice lived in him too (2 Timothy 1:5), and he had known the Scriptures from childhood (2 Timothy 3:15). Paul and Barnabas first preached in Lystra on the first missionary journey, when Paul healed a man lame from birth and the crowd took them for gods (Acts 14). On his second journey, Paul took young Timothy with him.
From then on Timothy traveled with Paul and worked as his messenger to many churches. Two of the most personal letters of the New Testament, First and Second Timothy, are addressed to him. In 1 Timothy 1:3, Paul asks him to stay on in Ephesus, and the church historian Eusebius calls him the first bishop of Ephesus.
A later text, the Acts of Timothy, says that around 97 AD he tried to stop a pagan procession, the festival called Katagogia, and was killed by the crowd. In the fourth century his relics were moved from Ephesus to the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.
Lystra itself is still waiting for excavation, the site is a mound about 30 kilometers south of Konya, just north of the village of Hatunsaray, where a small museum shows finds from the ancient town. There are no ruins to walk through, but the hill and the wide plain around it are still there.
Somewhere in this landscape, the boy whom Paul called “my own son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2) once played.
5. Saint Basil the Great of Caesarea
Basil was born around 330 AD in Caesarea Mazaca, today’s Kayseri in central Turkey, into a wealthy and remarkably holy family. His parents, Basil the Elder and Emmelia, are both venerated as saints. His grandmother Macrina the Elder was a follower of Gregory the Wonderworker, the famous bishop of Neocaesarea.
Four of his brothers and sisters are saints too: Macrina the Younger, Naucratius, Peter of Sebaste and Gregory of Nyssa. I don’t know another family quite like it in Christian history.
Basil studied in Caesarea, in Constantinople and then in Athens, where he became close friends with Gregory of Nazianzus. Back home he gave his wealth to the poor and lived for a time as monk near Neocaesarea in Pontus, today’s Niksar. In 370 AD he became bishop of Caesarea, and he died on 1 January 379, at about 49 years old.
In less than ten years as bishop, he shaped Eastern Christianity like few others. His writings on monastic life, the Asketikon, are still a foundation of Orthodox monasticism. Outside Caesarea he built the Basiliad, with a poorhouse, a hospice and a hospital, often called one of the earliest Christian hospitals. The Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil is still celebrated in Orthodox churches.
Basil’s Caesarea is laying under the busy modern city of Kayseri. The wider region of Cappadocia, with its rock-cut churches and monasteries, is where his monastic ideas feel most alive today. You can read about the region’s Roman past in my article Roman Province of Cappadocia.
6. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus
Gregory was Basil’s closest friend and the second of the three great Cappadocian Fathers. He was born around 329 AD on his family’s estate of Karbala, outside the village of Arianzus near Nazianzus, in southwest Cappadocia. His father, also called Gregory, was bishop of Nazianzus, and his mother Nonna is honored as a saint.
He studied in Caesarea, Alexandria and Athens. On the way to Athens his ship was caught in a violent storm, and he promised to give his life to Christ if he survived. In Athens he and Basil became inseparable friends. Back in Cappadocia, he was ordained a priest by his father’s wish, quite against his own.
His great moment came in Constantinople. In 379 church leaders asked him to lead the small Nicene community of the capital. There he gave his Five Theological Orations, still some of the most important texts on the Trinity, and in 380 he became archbishop of Constantinople. At the First Council of Constantinople in 381 he resigned rather than divide the church, and he went home.
He spent his last years in peace at Arianzus and died on 25 January 390. The Orthodox Church calls him “the Theologian,” a title it gives to only two other people: John the Apostle and Symeon the New Theologian.
Nazianzus itself is thought to be the village of Bekarlar, near Aksaray. Gregory’s family estate is usually linked with Gelveri, the Greek Karvali, today the small town of Güzelyurt. It is about 45 kilometers from Aksaray and 15 kilometers from Ihlara Valley. Güzelyurt has rock-cut churches and a large 19th-century church known as the Church of Saint Gregory, now used as a mosque.
7. Saint John Chrysostom of Antioch
John was born around 347 AD in Antioch on the Orontes, today’s Antakya in Hatay Province, then one of the great cities of the Roman East. His father was a high-ranking military officer who died soon after John was born, and his mother Anthusa raised him alone. Christian tradition remembers her as a devout woman.
He studied rhetoric under Libanius, most famous pagan teacher of Antioch. The church historian Sozomen tells that Libanius, on his deathbed, said John would have been his successor “if the Christians had not taken him from us.” John then studied theology under Diodorus of Tarsus, became a deacon in 381 and later a priest.
For twelve years, from 386 to 397, he preached in Antioch’s Golden Church, and the crowds loved him. His preaching earned him the name Chrysostom, “golden-mouthed” in Greek. In 397 he was appointed archbishop of Constantinople. He had to leave Antioch in secret, because people feared the city would riot if its favorite preacher left.
In the capital, his direct preaching against luxury made enemies, Empress Eudoxia was one of them. He was sent into exile in 403, called back, and exiled again in 404 to Cucusus, today’s Göksun. In 407 he was ordered to a more distant place, and he died on the way, at Comana in Pontus, near today’s Tokat, on 14 September 407.
Together with Basil and Gregory, John is one of the Three Holy Hierarchs, honored together by the Orthodox Church on 30 January. So three of the seven saints in this article share one feast day. The Catholic Church counts the same three, with Athanasius, as the four Great Greek Fathers of the Church.
Antakya is the city where the disciples were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). However, the earthquakes of 6 February 2023 damaged it badly, and rebuilding goes on. The cave Church of Saint Peter on Mount Starius is the best-known Christian site of the city, and the Hatay Archaeology Museum, famous for its mosaics, also took some damage. You can read more in my article Antioch.
Visiting the Birthplaces of the Saints
Seven saints, seven birthplaces: Tarsus, Patara, Smyrna, Lystra, Caesarea, the Nazianzus area and Antioch. They are all on land you can cross by car, but they are far apart. You would need at least a long week if you really push, and two or three weeks is much more comfortable.
Two of these saints are close to my home. Polycarp’s İzmir is one of my day-guiding areas, and Timothy’s story ends in Ephesus, where tradition makes him the first bishop. In Ephesus Ancient City I like to tell my guests about Timothy, the young man from Lystra who became the bishop of the city.
Many of these places are on the roads of Apostle Paul too. If you would like to walk part of his route, have a look at my article about the Saint Paul Trail in Turkey.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which saints were born in Turkey?
Many early saints were born in Anatolia, today’s Turkey. The best known are Saint Paul (Tarsus), Saint Nicholas (Patara), Saint Polycarp (probably Smyrna, today’s İzmir), Saint Timothy (Lystra or Derbe), Saint Basil the Great (Kayseri), Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (Cappadocia) and Saint John Chrysostom (Antakya). Basil’s brother Gregory of Nyssa and sister Macrina the Younger came from the same Cappadocian family.
Where was Saint Nicholas born?
Saint Nicholas was born in Patara, an ancient port city of Lycia on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, today in Antalya Province. Tradition dates his birth to 15 March 270 AD. He became bishop of Myra, today’s Demre, and he is the historical man behind Santa Claus.
Was Saint Paul born in Turkey?
Yes. Paul was born in Tarsus in Cilicia, today a city in Mersin Province in southern Turkey. In Acts 22:3 he says he was “born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia.” His birth year is not known exactly; scholars place it between about 5 BC and 5 AD.
Was Saint George born in Turkey?
Perhaps, but it is not certain. One old tradition says his father came from Cappadocia, in central Turkey, and his mother from Lydda in Palestine, where she took George after his father died. His birthplace is unclear, so I did not include him among the seven saints born in Turkey in this article.
Hire Biblical Tour Guide in Turkey
I’m a nationally licensed Turkish tour guide based in Kuşadası, nearby Ephesus. My day guiding is in Ephesus, İzmir and Pamukkale, where Timothy, Polycarp and the Seven Churches of Revelation are part of every story. My license is valid all over Turkey, so for Tarsus, Lycia, Cappadocia or Antakya I can join you as your personal guide on a longer, multi-day journey.
You can see my guiding rates and guiding areas, read my guide to Christian Turkey for first-time visitors or write to me through my contact page.
These seven saints remind us that Anatolia was not only a road for the apostles, it was also a cradle of saints. I hope we will visit some of their hometowns together one day. You can always write to me with your questions about the saints of Turkey. See you soon, Hasan Gülday.
