Church in Istanbul, Turkey
Saint Benoit
(
French
:
Saint Benoit
;
Turkish
:
Saint Benoit Latin Katolik Kilisesi
; also
Italian
:
Santa Maria della Cisterna
) is a
Roman Catholic
Church in
Istanbul
, Turkey, important for historical reasons. Established in 1427, the shrine is the oldest
Catholic
church
of Istanbul still in use.
[1]
Location
[
edit
]
The edifice lies in Istanbul, in the district of
Beyo?lu
, in the neighborhood of
Karakoy
(ancient Galata), almost at the border with
Tophane
, at Kemeraltı Caddesi 11, on a terrace at the top of a staircase.
History
[
edit
]
Byzantine Age
[
edit
]
On May 12, 1427,
Benedictine
friar
Dom
Nicolas Meynet, together with friars from
Genoa
founded a monastery in
Constantinople
, on the southeastern slope of the
Galata
hill.
[2]
The Genoese had since a few years enlarged for the sixth and last time the wall which protected their
Peyre Galata
citadel, and the monastery was built just inside the new ramparts.
[3]
The church, jointly dedicated to
St. Benedict
and the
Virgin Mary
(
Latin
:
Sancta Maria de Misericordia
),
[4]
lay on the ruins of an ancient church and near a large cistern, both Byzantine.
[2]
Due to that, the church was also known as of "Santa Maria della Cisterna".
[4]
On May 13, 1449, the Friars joined the congregation of
St. Justine from Padova
. In 1450, the little monastery had 16 monks.
[2]
In 1453, shortly before the
Ottoman
Conquest of Constantinople
, the friars sent all the relics and the religious ornaments of their church to
Chios
and then to
Genoa
, to rescue them from the impending Ottoman attack.
[2]
Ottoman Age
[
edit
]
After 1478, the community was repeatedly shuttered by fights among friars,
[5]
until Sultan
Suleyman the Magnificent
menaced to convert the building into a
mosque
for the
Moors
who, expelled in those years from Spain, were resettling in Galata.
[4]
Thanks to the intercession of King
Francois I
of France, the friars could remain in the complex, which became the Royal chapel of the Ambassador of France at the
Porte
.
[4]
[6]
In 1540, French voyager
Pierre Gilles
visited the site, and described the giant cistern with 300 columns, which were later dismantled and sold by the Genoese.
[7]
On 18 November 1583, members of the
Society of Jesus
led by
Giulio Mancinelli
, sent by Pope
Gregory XIII
upon request of the
Magnifica Communita di Pera
(the Genoese administration in Galata), took charge of the church, founding a school in the precincts of the monastery.
[6]
The shrine burned several times: after the first fire in 1610, it was restored by a
Venetian
and
French
endowment.
[7]
St. Benoit was the only church to be spared by the great fire of Galata of 1660, but the monastery in that occasion was damaged and plundered.
[7]
During the Seventeenth Century the monastery's life was disturbed several times by
plague
and internal disputes among friars.
[7]
In 1686 the church burned because of negligence, and was restored by the friars and the French ambassador.
[7]
In this occasion the
Mufti
of Istanbul donated the pillars still standing at the top of the staircase, and approved the reconstruction project with a
lead
roof cover and
vaults
, elements usually allowed only for mosques.
[6]
In 1696 the church burned again but was restored one year later by the association of the Merchants of
Marseilles
.
[7]
In this period St. Benoit became the most prestigious church of Galata, being used as a burial place by the upper class of the quarter and by several aristocrats and French ambassadors.
[7]
Moreover, Saint Benoit was also used as national church of the Germans in Istanbul.
[6]
During these years n hospital was added to the complex.
[7]
The Seventeenth-Century Ottoman traveler
Evliya Celebi
describes the shrine as a "French church with an
Organ
".
[6]
In 1731 the edifice burned again during another quarter fire, but was restored in 1732 by the French Ambassador.
[7]
On 6 July 1735 the body of the Hungarian exile
Francis II Rakoczi
, considered a national hero in his country, was buried in St. Benoit, next to his mother Zrinyi Ilona. There they remained, their graves often visited by Hungarian visitors to the city, until moved to Hungary in 1906.
After the
Suppression of the Society of Jesus
in 1773,
[7]
in 1783 French
Lazarists
friars took over the complex.
[7]
At the end of the eighteenth century a chapel dedicated to
St. Anne
was built.
[7]
After problems during the
French Revolution
, in 1804 the friars restored the church,
[6]
and transformed the existing school into the "
Lycee Saint-Benoit d'Istanbul
[
fr
;
tr
]
" (
Turkish
:
Ozel Saint-Benoit Fransız Lisesi
)
[7]
which exists still today and is one of the most prestigious private schools in Istanbul.
In 1839, nuns belonging to the
Soeurs de la Charite
(Daughters of Charity) society came from France and founded the female section of the school.
[6]
In 1840 the school was moved to
Bebek
,
[7]
but after the demolition of part of the Genoese ramparts of Galata, the school moved back here. In 1865 part of the left aisle and the atrium with several inscriptions burned. This part of the church was coarsely restored in 1871.
[6]
In 1867 the complex was enlarged with the erection of the "Maison de la providence" complex, comprising, among others, an orphanage, an hospital and a seminary.
[7]
The church was never one of the Roman Catholic
Parishes
of the Frankish quarter of Istanbul,
[6]
but is the oldest Catholic church in Istanbul still in use.
[1]
Architecture and interior
[
edit
]
The church has the entrance on Kemeraltı Caddesi, and can be reached by a staircase leading uphill.
[7]
The complex leans on a terrace, perhaps part of the Byzantine cistern which once lay nearby. During the Ottoman age the site became a fruit garden, and was then known under the name Cukurbostan ("Hollow Garden").
[2]
Originally the small church with three naves had only one dome (the two over the side aisles are later additions), an atrium and a gallery, while the interior was decorated with much admired mosaics depicting the life and passion of Christ.
[6]
The rectangular building is oriented in direction southwest?northeast and has an entrance on the west side with an atrium whose
columns
and
capitals
are almost totally Byzantine
spolia
.
[4]
The edifice's
brickwork
is made of alternate rows of stones and bricks, and the three naves are covered by
groin vaults
.
[4]
The main and the south naves originate from the 1752 restoration, while the north one has been erected during the 1871 reconstruction.
[8]
The first two naves end to the east with small chambers covered with domes.
[4]
It is possible that the southernmost of these chambers is still a remain of an ancient Byzantine church.
[4]
The portal on Kemeraltı Caddesi and the bell tower with square plan and
crenelated moulding
, originally a watch tower,
[3]
come both from the fifteenth century.
[8]
In the interior, several inscribed gravestones from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries remember wealthy
Levantine
families, church's benefactors, and French Ambassadors.
[7]
In the church were among others buried the Croatian noblewoman
Jelena Zrinska
and her son, the Hungarian aristocrat
Francis II Rakoczi
, both dead in exile in the Ottoman Empire.
[9]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Janin (1953) p. 582-601
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Janin (1953) p. 593
- ^
a
b
Mamboury (1953) p. 314
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Muller-Wiener (1977) p. 100
- ^
Janin (1953) p. 594
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
Mamboury (1953) p. 315
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
q
Muller-Wiener (1977) p. 101
- ^
a
b
Eyice(1955) p. 104
- ^
Eyice(1955) p. 105
Sources
[
edit
]
- Mamboury, Ernest
(1953).
The Tourists' Istanbul
. Istanbul: Cituri Biraderler Basımevi.
- Janin, Raymond
(1953).
La Geographie Ecclesiastique de l'Empire Byzantin. 1. Part: Le Siege de Constantinople et le Patriarcat Oecumenique. 3rd Vol. : Les Eglises et les Monasteres
(in French). Paris: Institut Francais d'Etudes Byzantines.
- Eyice, Semavi
(1955).
Istanbul. Petite Guide a travers les Monuments Byzantins et Turcs
(in French). Istanbul: Istanbul Matbaası.
External links
[
edit
]