Istanbul has no shortage of cool old churches and mosques, and it can often feel like too much of a good thing. “You know”, Jürgen or I will remark on a increasingly frequent basis, “I think we’ve visited enough mosques”. And we’ll briefly consider changing the day’s plans. But what are we going to do? Just ignore something as cool as the Rose Mosque?
When entering an extremely old mosque, we’ve learned to look for the placement of the mihrab: the semicircular niche which indicates the direction of Mecca. Orthodox churches face east, but a mosque should be oriented toward Mecca. If you’re in a mosque that was built as such, the mihrab is integrated soundly into the architecture. But if you’re in a former church which has undergone conversion, the mihrab will be off to the side, inelegantly askew.
The mihrab in the Gül Camii was askew, because this was originally the Byzantine Church of St. Theodosia, built in the 12th century. It’s a small building, square-shaped and built of red brick, and once guarded Theodosia’s corpse. She was a nun martyred during the 8th century struggle against iconoclasm. While protesting the removal of a particularly revered icon at Constantinople’s Great Palace, Theodosia shook a ladder and inadvertently killed the soldier who was atop it. For this crime, she was executed in one of those glorious ways forever lost to history: a ram’s horn was hammered through her neck.
May 29th, the day on which the Ottomans overran Istanbul, just happened to be Theodosia’s Saint Day, and the church was full of worshipers. According to at least one account, the marauding Turks stormed inside, chased out the Byzantines, and threw her holy old bones to the dogs. And then they converted her church into a mosque. Yes, Saint Theodosia has had it rough.
After tracking down the Gül Camii (or Rose Mosque), we visited the nearby Aya Nikola: a Greek Orthodox church. This rundown old building on the shore of the Golden Horn looks nothing like a church, but after having rung the doorbell, we were shown in by a little Greek lady. The Aya Nikola is tiny and dark, but lavishly decorated, with a fantastic wall of icons around the altar, but I got the distinct impression it’s no longer used in service.
Part of the reason we enjoy hunting down these old churches, is the excuse it gives us to explore new neighborhoods. From the Aya Nikola, we walked along the coast of the Golden Horn up into the hills of Fener and Balat, the old Jewish quarter. This part of Istanbul, west of the Atatürk Bridge, is one of the most picturesque and rarely-visited parts of town.
Locations on our Map: Gül Camii | Aya Nikola
