Faith & Heritage
The Seven Churches of Revelation
All seven are in Turkey, on one loop from Izmir. Our Istanbul office has run this circuit for years.
The seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3 are seven real cities in western Turkey: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. They sit on a loop that takes seven to nine days from Izmir, and the order John lists them in is the order a messenger would have ridden between them.
Several of the messages only land once you have stood in the place. Laodicea is the clearest case, and it is the last stop below.
Seven cities, in the order the messenger rode
North from Ephesus up the coast, then inland and back down. The same loop still works as a driving route today.
Ephesus
near SelçukRevelation 2:1-7What happenedPraised for hard work and for refusing false teachers, then told it had abandoned the love it had at first. The largest and most important of the seven cities, and the one Paul spent nearly three years in.
What is still thereThe best preserved classical city in the Mediterranean: the theatre, the Library of Celsus, the marble street, and the terrace houses with their mosaics intact.
Smyrna
İzmirRevelation 2:8-11What happenedOne of only two churches that receives no rebuke at all. It is told to expect poverty and prison, and to be faithful even to the point of death.
What is still thereThe excavated agora sits in the middle of a working city of three million. You walk down into the Roman basement level from a modern street.
Pergamum
BergamaRevelation 2:12-17What happenedAddressed as the place where Satan has his throne, usually read as a reference to the great altar or to the imperial cult centre. Antipas was killed here.
What is still thereAn acropolis on a steep hill with the steepest theatre of the ancient world, and the Asclepion healing complex below. The Great Altar itself was removed to Berlin in the 1800s.
Thyatira
AkhisarRevelation 2:18-29What happenedThe smallest and least important of the seven cities receives the longest message. Lydia, the cloth dealer Paul met at Philippi, was from here.
What is still thereA modest excavated block in the middle of a modern town. It is the quietest stop, and it makes the point about the longest letter going to the smallest place.
Sardis
SartRevelation 3:1-6What happenedTold it has a reputation for being alive but is dead. Twice in its history the city fell because its supposedly unassailable citadel went unwatched.
What is still thereThe Temple of Artemis, a vast bath and gymnasium complex, and one of the largest ancient synagogues ever excavated, which sits right on the main civic street.
Philadelphia
AlaşehirRevelation 3:7-13What happenedThe second of the two churches with no rebuke. It is promised an open door that no one can shut, written to a congregation described as having little strength.
What is still thereA small site in a modern town, with the pillars of a Byzantine basilica still standing above street level.
Laodicea
near DenizliRevelation 3:14-22What happenedNeither cold nor hot, but lukewarm. The image is local, not abstract. Laodicea had no good water of its own and piped it in by aqueduct, so it arrived tepid, while Hierapolis next door had hot springs and Colossae had cold streams. The city was also famously rich, and is told it is poor and blind.
What is still thereOne of the most active excavations in Turkey: two theatres, a stadium, the church of Laodicea, and the aqueduct terminus with its calcified pipes. Hierapolis and the white terraces of Pamukkale are a short drive away.
Four of the seven are big sites. Three are not.
Ephesus, Pergamum, Sardis and Laodicea are substantial excavated cities and you will want a few hours at each. Smyrna is a single excavated block under a modern city. Thyatira and Philadelphia are small, and a group that expects seven Ephesuses will be disappointed at two of them.
We say this before the trip rather than after. The small sites are still worth the stop, and at Thyatira the contrast is the point: the longest of the seven messages went to the least important of the seven cities.
Related journeys
- In the footsteps of Paul →
Greece and the Aegean coast. Ephesus appears on both routes, so the two combine without repeating a day.
- Turkey →
Pamukkale sits beside Laodicea, and Cappadocia and Istanbul extend the week.
- All faith and heritage journeys →
What groups ask about the seven churches
Yes. All seven cities are in western Turkey, within a loop that starts and ends near Izmir. Patmos, where John received the vision, is a Greek island offshore.
Planning a pilgrimage? Talk to a faith-travel specialist →