Dug into the tuff probably between the 8th and 10th centuries, it is the most interesting rock church in the area and directly overlooks the Gravina. Anticipated by a series of caves, which over the centuries will certainly have carried out more functions, the actual church has a quadrangular plan with five naves, supported by 14 pillars in natural stone. According to legend, the massacre of the Gravinesi by the Saracens took place in one of the caves during the third raid in 999, an event recorded in an epigraph placed on the wall of the same cave. However, the human skulls and bones present today most likely belong to corpses moved here during the 17th and 18th centuries. It is probable, in fact, that when the church was deconsecrated, it was used as a cemetery and this would explain the enormous quantity of bones found.

The church preserves residual parts of frescoes (one with a large Christ Pantocrator between Saints Paul and Michael) and three altars with the three stone and plaster statues dated 17th and 18th centuries, also preserves part of the three archangels, as well as a medieval arcosolium tomb. Closed for worship, every 8th May it is the site of the celebration of St. Michael of Caves feast, in memory of the St. Michael legendary apparition in a cave on Monte Sant’Angelo.

This place is not included in any route.

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