Actually only the main entrance is closed, I wonder if they ever open it, maybe for a ceremony or something.
There's a side door that is open to the public. I've been inside, there are caretakers watching the place, once you step in, you're reminded that you're not allowed to take photos!!! Right away, before you can even have a look inside.
Now, this might happen for two reasons. One, to protect the frescoes, but I'm not really sure if a flashlight from that distance can damage them so much. Two, to make money. You know, there are little printed brochures for sale at the entrance, postcards and a bunch of other things. If photographing is allowed, who on earth would buy those? Nowadays everyone has a phone with a camera, right?

I tend to believe it's the second. You have to pay an entrance fee, which is almost $2. So money talks.

I have a very bad experience. It happened at the orthodox cathedral in my hometown. I was with a guest from Sweden, wanted to show her the city. She's never been to an orthodox cathedral before, so we went in and started to take photos. This is somehow a normal behaviour, you want to have some memories and photos to show at home to your loved ones, right? It's just that there was a sign at the entrance saying no photos! And we missed that because we were looking at the beauty of the place.
At that point a cleaning lady came out of somewhere, shouting at us, that photographing is forbidden. I said I'm sorry, I did not know that. This wasn't enough for her. She kept shouting at us, damn tourist, they never pay attention, they think everything is allowed and so on and on, damn tourists!
I was shocked, to tell you the truth. Told my guest to go, we're not welcomed here and we left.
I was thinking. We were in the Lord's house, right? It doesn't matter what religion we are talking about, but each religion teaches about forgiveness, about helping others, especially those in need and so on. We made a mistake, although no damage was done. We asked for forgiveness and yet we were verbally abused. There was no forgiveness for our mistake 🙂
I could go on and on about cases like this because this was not the only incident.
In conclusion, I think in some cases it would be very indicated to rethink the whole role of people like this woman and others who sometimes tend to forget that they're serving God and their role is to help people, not to punish them 🙂.