Historic church becomes public library in Adana

ADANA

The Aya Nikola Church, also known as the Adana Greek Orthodox Church, has been transformed into a public library, ushering in a new chapter in its nearly two-century-long history.

Originally built in 1845 by the local Greek Orthodox community following the 1839 Tanzimat Edict, which granted non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire the right to establish places of worship and education, the church stood as a religious and cultural landmark for decades.

After the 1923 population exchange between Türkiye and Greece, the church was abandoned. It was later repurposed as the Adana Archaeological Museum, one of the first museums of the Republic, until 1972.

From then on, it functioned as a museum depot, before reopening in 1983 as the Adana Ethnography Museum. Following a comprehensive restoration between 2013 and 2015, it was renamed the Kuruköprü Church Memorial Museum.

In recent weeks, the historic building has welcomed a new community of readers. After its longtime home at the Sabancı Cultural Center was damaged in the Feb. 6, 2023, earthquake and slated for demolition, the Adana Provincial Public Library has relocated to the church. The church’s striking architecture now offers a unique reading atmosphere, with its walls lined by the library’s most popular collection, which includes hundreds of literary classics.