Saint Stefan (Istanbul)

St. Stefan in Istanbul

Sankt Stefan ( Bulgarian Свети Стефан / Sweti Stefan , Turkish Aya Stefan ) is a Bulgarian Orthodox church in the Fener district of the Turkish metropolis of Istanbul . Because the main building material used was cast iron , the three-aisled basilica on the banks of the Golden Horn is also known as the Iron Church (demir kilise) .

history

The iconostasis in the apse facing the Golden Horn.

For several centuries the Bulgarian Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire were subordinate to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople , in whose churches they also celebrated their services. In the course of the Bulgarian rebirth , they increasingly campaigned for independence from the Greek Orthodox Church. In 1870 the Bulgarian Exarchate was finally set up with its seat in Constantinople by a Ferman of the Sultan Abdülaziz . Even after Bulgaria's detachment from the Ottoman Empire in 1878, Constantinople remained the center of the Bulgarian Church.

Initially, the now independent congregation of Constantinople, Bulgarian Orthodox Christians, used a wooden house given by an Ottoman statesman, Knjaz Stefan Bogoridi , of Bulgarian descent , which was consecrated as a church on October 9, 1849, for their services. With the reading of the sultan Fermans for the establishment of the exarchate on February 28, 1870, it became an important site for the Bulgarian independence movement.

After a fire in the wooden church, the Bulgarian Christians received permission from the sultan on June 25, 1890 to build a new church next to the wooden church. On April 27, 1892, the foundation stone for the new building was laid on the initiative of exarch Josef I. The commissioned Armenian architect Hovsep Aznavor decided in view of the weak subsoil on the Golden Horn for a light structure made entirely of steel and iron and against a reinforced concrete structure. After an international tender, the individual elements, which together weighed around 500 tons, were manufactured between 1893 and 1896 by Rudolph Philipp Waagner (now Waagner-Biro ) in Vienna and shipped over the Danube and the Black Sea to Istanbul. After around one and a half years of construction, the new church was consecrated to St. Stephen on September 8, 1898 by Joseph I. Shortly afterwards the old wooden church was demolished.

The load-bearing frame of the church is made of steel, the outer skin of cast-iron plates that are riveted , welded and bolted together. The architecture of the cross-shaped church combines elements of neo-Gothic and neo-baroque . The six bells of the 40 m high bell tower were cast in the Russian city of Yaroslavl . The wooden iconostasis was made in Moscow .

Closure, restoration and reopening in 2018

The iron structure, which was exposed to the weather for more than a century, suffered mainly from the progressive corrosion of the material. In addition, cracks had formed in the iron plates, which is why the church was finally closed in 2008. To stop the church building from falling apart, extensive restoration work began in 2011.

After the completion of the restoration work, the reopening of the church took place on January 7th 2018 by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the presence of the Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov . During the seven-year construction period, 90% of the building elements were restored, to which Turkey contributed its own tax funds of around 16 million Turkish lira (around 3.5 million euros) and Bulgaria around one million Turkish lira.