Built in 1858, the church of Agios Theodoros stands at the entrance of the underground city of Malakopi (Μαλακοπή – Cappadocian Greek), today’s Derinkuyu in Nevşehir Province. It is one of two above-ground churches built by the community in the nineteenth century. The other, the former church of the Archangels (today’s Republican Mosque), was built in 1859.

Prior to this, the Rüm community of Malakopi used the cruciform underground church of the Holy Unmercenaries (Άγιοι Ανάργυροι). Marked with Greek inscriptions, this structure is located on the fifth and lowest level of the 85 metre deep underground city. 

The underground city of Malakopi was built in the seventh century to protect the inhabitants of the district from raids during the Arab-Byzantine wars. It had a capacity to house 20,000 people and their livestock, and was connected to other underground cities in the region through tunnels. SWIPE TO SEE A MAP of the underground city with the two nineteenth century churches at ground level. 

In some parts of Cappadocia, the Rüm community were Turcophone and wrote in Karamanlidika. However, in Malakopi, Nigde, and surrounding villages, inhabitants retained unique dialects of Greek that were considered archaic. This was in addition to the use of spoken Turkish and Karamanlidika in written texts. 

As well as the retention of dialects of spoken Greek in Malakopi, the language was used in written documents, as attested to in the community records housed today in the Central State Archives in Athens. In contrast to Mersin in southern Anatolia, for example, where the codices of the Demogeronta (Council of Elders) are in Karamanlidikia, the regulations of the Demogeronta in Malakopi, codified between 1914-1919, are written in Greek.