Ancient Nicaea Basilica Reemerges as Lake Recedes, Revealing Martyrs' Graves

The 4th-century Basilica of the Holy Fathers at Nicaea, long submerged beneath a lake near Iznik in northwestern Turkey, has reappeared as water levels fall, exposing ruins that shed new light on early Christian life and persecution.

Discovery and excavation

Archaeologist Mustafa Sahin first identified the site from aerial photographs in 2014 and has led excavations ever since. The team found that the standing basilica dates to around AD 380; earlier work on the site included six years of underwater excavation when the ruins lay roughly 50 metres offshore and two metres below the lake surface. Since 2020, receding waters — local researchers link the decline to climate-driven changes in the lake level — have left the entire complex on dry land.

A site of councils, earthquakes and martyrdom

The basilica stands on the footprint of an earlier wooden church connected with the martyr Neophytus, a 16-year-old who was executed in AD 303 during Roman persecutions. That first church is associated with the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, where some 318 bishops met and drafted what is now known as the Nicene Creed. The earlier building did not survive a powerful earthquake in the late 4th century; the later stone basilica rose on the same site and stood until it was destroyed in another earthquake in 1065. Its ruins were submerged in the centuries that followed.

A martyrs' graveyard

Sahin's team has documented roughly 300 graves marked by terracotta tile covers. So far, 27 graves have been opened; many show clear signs of violent death and torture, including broken long bones and skull injuries. Under one tile the team recorded two broken bones and a partial jawbone with teeth. An adjacent area contains 11 smaller tile covers that investigators identify as child-sized but have not yet been opened. Anthropologists plan careful excavation, scientific analysis and respectful reburial of any human remains.

'This was not just a regular church cemetery but rather a place of martyrdom, a very significant church for Christians,' Sahin said, underscoring the site's historical and spiritual importance.

Heritage, pilgrimage and local hopes

Iznik's mayor, Kagan Mehmet Usta, said the newly exposed basilica — together with Iznik's ancient fortified walls — could draw Catholic and Orthodox pilgrims and boost cultural and faith tourism for the town of some 45,000 residents. A papal visit timed to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea has already increased interest from international visitors.

For Sahin and others, Anatolia's preserved churches and archaeological record are central to understanding early Christianity and its spread across the Roman world. The site offers a rare, tangible link to the debates, devotion and suffering of late antiquity and highlights the complex intersections of history, faith and environmental change.