Armenian Church in Istanbul, Turkey
The
Saint Gregory the Illuminator Church of Galata
(
Armenian
:
???????? ????? ?????? ?????????? ???????
,
Ghalat’ayi Surp Krikor Lusavorich yegeghetsi
;
Turkish
:
Surp Krikor Lusavoric Ermeni Kilisesi
) is the oldest extant
Armenian Apostolic
church in Istanbul. It was built in the late 14th century, in the
Genoan
period, shortly before the
fall of Constantinople
to the
Ottomans
. Located in
Galata
(
Karakoy
), it is the city's only church built in the traditional style of the
Armenian church architecture
?namely with a dome with a
conical roof
.
[2]
[3]
The
Getronagan Armenian High School
was established in 1886 next to the church.
[4]
History
[
edit
]
Foundation
[
edit
]
It is the oldest of
Istanbul's Armenian 35 churches
.
[3]
[5]
[a]
According to a manuscript formerly kept at the
Armash monastery
the church was founded in 1391 by an Armenian merchant named Kozma (
Italian
:
Cosimo
) from Kaffa (now
Feodosia
) in
Crimea
who bought the land on which it was built.
[1]
[3]
[5]
Galata at the time was a
Genoese colony
and the Armenians found more protection under their control rather than that of the
Byzantine Empire
.
[1]
[5]
The blacksmith Aved built the altar of the church as well as the Holy Cross chapel near the church.
[7]
[3]
First concrete evidence of the existence of the church comes from two 1431 inscriptions on the church. The date is sometimes cited as the foundation date of the church.
[1]
[3]
Historian Kevork Pamukciyan believes that the current church was built on the location of St. Sargis, an Armenian church in Galata, mentioned in two Armenian manuscripts from 1360 and 1361.
[1]
[3]
Later history
[
edit
]
The church and an Armenian quarter around it are recorded in an Ottoman survey from 1455 which indicated the "continuation of the Byzantine Armenian presence into the Ottoman period."
[8]
In 1635 Patriarch Grigor Kesaratsi (Gregory of Caesarea) was buried at the wall of the church by Shahin Celebi, a wealthy Armenian.
[3]
The church was often damaged by fires. It survived the Galata fire of 1660. It burned almost entirely in 1731 and was restored in 1733 by Sargis Khalfa, during the tenure of the Patriarch
Hovhannes Golod
.
[3]
The church was again burned almost completely in 1771. It was restored 28 years later, in 1799 by the architect Minas Khalfa who added the chapel of Surb Karapet ("
Holy Precursor
", i.e.
John the Baptist
). In 1888 the church and the two chapels joined and turned into one when the interior walls were taken down.
[1]
[3]
The crypt of Hovhannes Golod (d. 1741), located under the church, is decorated with black-and-white
Kutahya
and Dutch tiles.
The original church, richly decorated with tiles, included French, Italian, Chinese
porcelain
, and Tunisian tiles. They were probably added during an 18th century restoration.
[5]
The church was visited and described by European visitors such as
Antoine Galland
(1672),
[1]
Joseph Pitton de Tournefort
(early 1700s),
[10]
and
William Holden Hutton
(
c.
1900
). The latter wrote that it "contains some fine [manuscripts] and a sacred picture of Christ, of great antiquity."
[11]
In 1879
Malachia Ormanian
, the future Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople and a historian, served as a priest at the church early in his life.
[12]
Demolition and reconstruction
[
edit
]
The church was
expropriated
by the state and demolished in May 1958 to widen the street as part of large-scale reconstruction in Istanbul in the
Adnan Menderes
period.
[1]
[3]
In 1962 architect Bedros Zobyan designed a reconstruction plan for the church. It was completed in four years due to financial difficulties. The church was reconsecrated in 1965, but the official opening ceremony took place on May 15, 1966 and was presided over by Patriarch ?nork Kalustyan.
[1]
[14]
The new church is almost half as wide as the original, measuring 11.7 by 29.25 metres (38.4 by 96.0 ft). Due to the limited space allocated for the church, a basement was built to house the chapel and the grave of Hovhannes Golod (below the bell tower) and a balcony for the choir.
[1]
[3]
The church underwent renovations in 2005 and 2011.
[3]
References
[
edit
]
Notes
- ^
The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople lists 35 Armenian churches in Istanbul: 27 in the European part, 7 in the Asian part, and 1 in
Kınalıada
island.
[6]
References
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
Kaya, Onder (3 April 2014).
"Karakoy Yikimlarina Kurban Gi?den Ki?li?se: Surp Kri?kor Lusavori?c"
.
Paros Aylık Dergi
(in Turkish). Archived from
the original
on 28 August 2018.
- ^
Wharton, Alyson (2015).
The Architects of Ottoman Constantinople: The Balyan Family and the History of Ottoman Architecture
.
I.B.Tauris
. p.
63
.
ISBN
9781780768526
.
The conical-domed structure was not seen in Constantinople except for the pre-Ottoman church of Surp Krikor Lusavoric of Karakoy.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
"?. ?????? ?????????? ???????, ???????"
.
turkiyeermenileripatrikligi.org
(in Armenian).
Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople
. Archived from
the original
on 12 June 2018.
- ^
Hacikyan, Agop Jack
; Basmajian, Gabriel; Franchuk, Edward S.; Ouzounian, Nourhan (2005).
The Heritage of Armenian Literature: From the eighteenth century to modern times
. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. p.
17
.
ISBN
9780814332214
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Mitler, Louis (1979). "The Genoese in Galata: 1453?1682".
International Journal of Middle East Studies
.
10
(1): 90.
doi
:
10.1017/S0020743800053332
.
JSTOR
162479
.
S2CID
163123631
.
- ^
turkiyeermenileripatrikligi.org:
Old City
,
Western Boshporus
,
Eastern Boshphorus
,
Princes' Islands
- ^
Tu?lacı, Pars
[in Turkish]
(1991).
?stanbul Ermeni kiliseleri [Armenian Churches of Istanbul]
(in Turkish, English, and Armenian).
Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople
. p. 164.
- ^
Gocek, Fatma Muge; Baer, Marc David (1997). "Social Boundaries of Ottoman Women's Experience in Eighteenth-Century Galata Court Records". In Zilfi, Madeline C. (ed.).
Women in the Ottoman Empire: Middle Eastern Women in the Early Modern Era
. Leiden: BRILL. p.
56
.
ISBN
9789004108042
.
- ^
de Tournefort, Joseph Pitton
(1741) [1717].
Relation d'un voyage du Levant [A Voyage Into the Levant] Volume II
. London: D. Midwinter, 1741.
...the Armenians [have] one [church] by the Name of St. Gregory....
- ^
Hutton, William Holden
(1900).
Constantinople: The Story of the Old Capital of the Empire
. London: J. M. Dent & Co. pp.
268-269
.
- ^
"???????? ??????? [Ormanian Malachia]"
(in Armenian).
Yerevan State University
Institute for Armenian Studies.
- ^
Editorial (1966).
"???????? (????????) ????? ????? ?????? ???????? ???????? ???????"
.
Etchmiadzin
(in Armenian).
23
(6).
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin
: 15?16.
Bibliography