The Uçhisar monastery awaits a new community

At the end of the Roman Empire, the world was upside down: Turkey shone with Christianity: Italy was still largely pagan land and Rome was a peripheral branch of the new faith born in the East, and places like the Alps were irreducibly attached to the gods ancient.

The story concerning Casa Betania begins at the end of the 4th century. A.D., when St. Vigilio, bishop of Trento writes to s. Ambrose in Milan: «How to guide the Church of this city so that it opens up to the evangelization of the valleys? What method should be employed for the pagans to turn to Christ, the bright morning star? ».

After a few months the answer arrives: dear Vigilio, you will have three young people from Cappadocia; they accepted my invitation and will come to you not for months or years, but forever. Vigilio exults and announces the good news to his people. The young people ardent of faith - Sisinio, Martirio and Alessandro - arrive and settle in Val di Non, towards Passo del Tonale, but the tension rises immediately. It is May, the feast of Saturn, and traditionally a bull is killed. But a family, baptized, refuses to participate in the village festival. It never happened. The angry crowd accuses the three strangers worshiping another god of the wrongdoing, invading their house, striking Sisinius with an ax, making him torture, then Martirio is pierced by poles. Alessandro, still alive, is tied to the two bodies and taken to the stake where he dies in the flames. He will write, distraught, Vigilius: "So you repay the Lord, foolish and insipid people?". Little by little the people repent, conversions follow one another and finally the three missionaries from Cappadocia will become the patron saints of Trentino.

On the 1,600th anniversary of the martyrdom of the three young missionaries, the Archbishop of Trento wanted to express the gratitude of the Trentino Church to that of Anatolia by opening a small community of prayer in Cappadocia, in Uçhisar, with a simple monastic style, made up of prayer. manual work, good neighborliness and welcoming Christian pilgrims passing through. The intent of this gesture was to re-establish a link with this place full of Christian memories from which Trentino had received the gift of the Gospel.

Thus, for 20 years, consecrated lay people have lived in Casa Betania, praying, working and welcoming pilgrims. As there is no longer a turnover of people, the Diocese of Anatolia, since 2018, has decided to use the house for the same purposes and the bishop spends part of the year there.