The vault frescoes
Christ and the four evangelists with their symbolic animals across the central nave vault, the building's chief surviving decoration.
In the city where the Apostle Paul was born, this is the only church still standing that carries his name, and it is smaller and quieter than the name suggests: a domeless stone basilica rebuilt by Tarsus's Arabic-speaking Greek Orthodox community in the 1850s, reaching its present form in 1862, on a spot where a church is recorded as far back as 1102. The congregation left in the early twentieth century, the building drifted through other uses, and the state took it under protection in 1993, restored it in 1998-2000 and reopened it in 2001 as the Ministry of Culture's 'St Paul Monumental Museum'. There is no parish and no regular Mass, though pilgrim groups can arrange to pray here; Pope Benedict XVI named it a pilgrimage site for the Pauline Year of 2008-09, and it has sat on Turkey's UNESCO tentative list since 2000. A shaded courtyard greets you first, then a columned western portico with a sky-blue painted vault. Inside: a marble floor, and on the vault of the central nave frescoes of Christ flanked by the four evangelists with their symbols, Luke's bull, Mark's lion and John's eagle, while two angels among clouds and a landscape are painted beside the round window over the apse; a decorated marble screen closes off the sanctuary, niches in the walls once held icons, an upper gallery looks down on the nave, and a small belfry rises at the north-east corner. The whole visit runs twenty to forty minutes, which is worth knowing before you drive from Mersin for it alone. Tarsus lies about 30 km east of Mersin: thirty to forty minutes by car on the coastal road or the motorway, and roughly the same by dolmuş from Mersin's otogar for a few lira. Do not count on the train without checking first; the Adana-Mersin regional line was suspended in 2024 for reconstruction work and its reopening has slipped. Park on the edge of the old town, whose stone lanes are too narrow for a car, and walk. St Paul's Well is a few hundred metres away (separate ticket), and Cleopatra's Gate, the excavated Roman road and the Tarsus Museum are all within easy reach on foot, which is what turns half an hour in a church into half a day that justifies the trip. The appeal is historical first and foremost: Christian travellers from the Levant will get the most from it, as will anyone who enjoys reading Roman and Ottoman layers in a single small town. Children will be bored inside but the courtyard and lanes make up for it, and access is flat apart from the stair to the gallery. Avoid the middle of the day in July and August, when the humid Mersin coast turns walking between sights into a punishment; spring and autumn are the right seasons, and winter is mild if occasionally wet. Foreigners pay 3 euros and the museum closes on Mondays.
Christ and the four evangelists with their symbolic animals across the central nave vault, the building's chief surviving decoration.
A columned portico with a sky-blue vault opening onto a shaded courtyard, one of the quietest corners of the old town.
St Paul's Well is a few hundred metres away and Cleopatra's Gate and the Roman road a short walk further, so fold them into one half-day.
Caminur Mah., Abdi İpekçi Cad. No. 14, Tarsus 33440
No; the visit is half an hour at most. The value is Tarsus as a whole: the church, then the well, Cleopatra's Gate, the Roman road and the Tarsus Museum, all on foot, which makes a half-day that earns the trip.
The church. It has frescoes, a portico and a real courtyard; the well is a small courtyard around a wellhead with some glass-covered excavations that you finish in ten minutes, with its own separate €3 ticket.