THERE is something so intensely moving about remote places of worship. Perched on the top of a cliff, nestled into some isolated hillside or buffeted by sea breezes and saltwater spray, churches, chapels and even shrines in out-of-the-way locations are a bold statement. They are beacons of belief – a bricks-and-mortar apologia of an ancient faith, born of hope and proud defiance of nature’s adversity.
There are, of course, many remote churches across the world that are, rightly, famous: the monasteries of Meteora in Greece, and even Mont-Saint-Michel on its rocky, tidal island in Normandy. Some, indeed, deserve to be more famous; examples that spring to mind include the Chapel of Our Lady of the Snows, carved out of ice in Antarctica, and the Church of St Maximus the Confessor in a remote part of Georgia, which can only be visited by