Çelebi Sultan Mehmed Mosque

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The back of the Çelebi Sultan Mehmed Mosque
The wooden inner dome

The Çelebi Sultan Mehmed Mosque or Bayezid Mosque ( Greek Τέμενος Βαγιαζήτ , Turkish Çelebi Sultan Mehmed Camii ) is an Ottoman mosque in Didymoticho . The mosque appears in Greek archives under the name Camii Mehmed I ( Τέμενος Μεχμέτ Α ' ).

The mosque is located in the town's main square. Sultan Mehmed I had the mosque built between 1420 and 1421 by the architect Ivaz Pascha . Today it is the oldest Ottoman mosque on European soil, its construction falls before the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The mosque consists of a rectangular prayer hall and a minaret. The floor area is 1000 m².

The fact that the building does not have a dome but a pyramidal roof , and that the building lacks a portico , is, for some scholars, evidence that the building was not completed according to plan. Sultan Mehmet I died in 1421. The monumental inscriptions on the Qibla wall were designed by Sheikh Hamdullah and inaugurated in 1502.

Like most early Christian buildings, the mosque is now owned by the state administration of antiquities. The roof, which was last covered with sheet metal, leaked, so that in 1998 a membrane was drawn up over it. Finally, the top of the minaret was destroyed by a storm and falling debris caused cracks in the membrane. In an early meeting in November 2010, it was therefore decided to start a renovation in accordance with the listed buildings.

On the night of March 22, 2017, there was a major fire in the mosque, in which the unique wooden inner dome was completely destroyed. The Greek press named negligence during the restoration work as the cause. The Greek Ministry of Culture promised to repair the damage immediately. However, the original dome is considered irreplaceable.

Web links

Commons : Çelebi Sultan Mehmed Mosque  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Elisa Hübel: Didymoticho: Major fire in Europe's oldest mosque - GREECE.NET. Retrieved on March 27, 2017 (German).
  2. ↑ Από αμέλεια η φωτιά στο τέμενος Βαγιαζήτ . In: In.gr . ( in.gr [accessed March 27, 2017]).
  3. ↑ Υπ. Πολιτισμού: Θα αποκαταστήσουμε πλήρως τη ζημιά στο τέμενος Βαγιαζήτ . In: In.gr . ( in.gr [accessed March 27, 2017]).

Coordinates: 41 ° 20 ′ 56.8 ″  N , 26 ° 29 ′ 37.6 ″  E