Apostle Church (Constantinople)

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Depiction of the Ascension of Christ from the Marienhomiliar of the monk Jakobos Kokkinobaphos (12th century). Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, MS gr. 1208, fol. 3v.

The Apostle Church ( Greek Άγιοι Απόστολοι Agioi Apostoloi , also called Polyandreion or Myriandrion by the Byzantines ) was a Christian church in Constantinople , the former capital of the Byzantine Empire . After Hagia Sophia , the Apostle Church was the most important of the great churches of the Eastern Roman Empire. Its beginnings can be traced back to the time when the city was re-founded by Constantine the Great . During the reign of Justinian I , it was rebuilt. From the death of Constantine until the 11th century AD, it served as the burial place of the Byzantine emperors. After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottomans and the conversion of the previous main church Hagia Sophia into a mosque , it became the cathedral of the Patriarchs of Constantinople for a short time . As early as 1461, however, the Apostle Church, which was meanwhile in a poor structural condition, was demolished to make room for the newly built Fatih Mosque . The seat of the patriarchate was also moved to the Pammakaristos Church . The St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, built according to its model, still gives an approximate impression of the appearance of the Apostle Church .

The construction of the 4th century AD

After Constantine the Great had defeated his rival Licinius and thus achieved sole rule over the Roman Empire , he founded his new residence Constantinople on the site of the old Byzantium in 324 AD . Like some of his immediate predecessors, the emperors of the tetrarchy , he wanted to be buried in his residence. Therefore, he had a grave built on one of the highest points of Constantinople on the northern strand of the Mese, the main street of the city, which was completed at the latest in AD 337, when Constantine died. Eusebius of Caesarea reports that the building was used both as a burial place and as a church. Constantine's sarcophagus was located near the altar and was surrounded by twelve thekai , which represented the twelve apostles. In part, contrary to the one-sided Christian interpretation by Eusebius, a syncretistic imperial cult of Constantine, which combined Christian and solar ideas, was considered as the origin of the building program.

Under Constantius II , the son and successor of Constantine, numerous changes to the complex seem to have taken place. An eulogy by the future emperor Julian mentions building work. Repairs had to be carried out as a result of an earthquake in AD 358. For security reasons, the Patriarch Makedonios had Constantine's body temporarily removed from the church, which both parts of the population of Constantinople and Emperor Constantius resented. The fact that written records from the end of the 4th century speak of two connected buildings, a church and a mausoleum of Constantine, suggests that one of the two was newly built during the renovation work under Constantius II. Whether the emperor had a new church added to his father's grave or whether he had a new grave built and Constantine's sarcophagus transferred from the church to it cannot be definitively clarified. From the 5th century AD there are sources that attribute both the construction of the church and the mausoleum to Constantius II. In 356 the relics of Andrew , Luke and Timothy (the latter two were apostles) were transferred to the church.

After his death, Constantius and his wife were buried in his father's mausoleum. Other late antique emperors and their relatives also found their final resting place here or in other buildings attached to the church. The sarcophagi of Jovian , Valentinian I , his wife Flacilla and a little later also of Julian were in a stoa north of the church, those of the imperial couple Arcadius and Aelia Eudoxia and their son Theodosius II in a similar complex in the south. Theodosius I was again buried in the mausoleum of Constantine.

The construction of the 6th century AD

During the reign of Emperor Justinian I , the church was no longer considered grand enough. The Apostle Church was therefore torn down and rebuilt from scratch in the same place. The mausoleum of Constantine, the north and south stoa with the sarcophagi of the various emperors have been preserved. The historian Procopius attributed the new building to Justinian, while the historian known as Pseudo-Kodinos attributed it to the Empress Theodora . The second Church of the Apostles was consecrated on June 28, 550 . It was designed and built by the architects of Hagia Sophia , Anthemios von Tralles and Isidore von Milet , as a cross-shaped structure with five domes. A dome each arched the four arms of the cross. The crossing between the arms of the cross carried the fifth, even larger, windowed dome; each cross arm had three aisles. The atrium began in the west of the western arm of the cross . Justinian had another mausoleum added to the north arm of the cross, which was also cruciform and in which he and his wife were later buried.

For more than 700 years the Apostle Church was the second most important church in Constantinople after Hagia Sophia. Following the emperors of late antiquity, most of the Byzantine emperors were also buried in the mausoleums of the Apostle Church up to the 11th century. The town's patriarchs found their final resting place in the church. In addition to the relics of Andrew, Luke and Timotheus, those of St. John Chrysostom - died in exile in 407, transferred here by Proclus in 438 - and other church fathers , saints and martyrs were added later . The church also owned part of the scourge column to which Jesus was bound and then beaten. In the years of its existence, the Apostle Church acquired large amounts of gold, silver and precious stones that were donated by the faithful. In the 9th century it was renewed by the Emperor Basil I. It was probably also about the design with pictorial jewelry, which must have suffered during the time of the picture dispute. In 1028 the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine VIII , was buried at the Apostle Church. In the period that followed, it became common for emperors to set up their own burial churches for themselves and their relatives, such as John II Komnenus did with the Pantocrator monastery .

1203 saw Emperor Alexios III. forced to plunder the graves of his predecessors due to an acute lack of money. The basilica was robbed again in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade . The chronicler Niketas Choniates noted that the crusaders plundered the tombs of the emperors and robbed the sarcophagi of their jewelry made of gold and precious stones. Justinian's grave was not spared either. The tomb of the emperor Herakleios was opened and his golden crown was stolen with the hair still attached to it. Some of these treasures were brought to Venice , where they can be viewed in St. Mark's Basilica .

When Michael VIII recaptured the city from the Crusaders, he had a statue of the Archangel Michael put up in the Apostle Church to celebrate himself and this victory. The church was restored under Emperor Andronikos II in the early 14th century, but soon fell into disrepair as the Byzantine Empire lost large parts of its sphere of influence and the capital's population declined. The Florentine Cristoforo Buondelmonti saw the crumbling church in 1420.

In 1453 Constantinople succumbed to the onslaught of the Ottoman Turks. Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque and Sultan Mehmed II ordered the Greek Patriarch Gennadius Scholarius to move to the Apostle Church, which became the center of Orthodoxy . The neighborhood where the church was located was settled by Turks and hostilities soon grew towards such a large and centrally located building in the hands of the Christians. Gennadius decided, mainly because of the poor structural condition of the church, to move the seat of the patriarchate to the Pammakaristos church in the Christian district of Phanar .

Sultan Mehmed II had the Apostle Church torn down in 1461 and gave the order to build a mosque of comparable beauty and magnificence on the same site. The result was the Fatih Mosque (Mosque of the Conqueror), the successor of which from the 18th century now stands on the site of the Apostle Church and near which is Mehmed's tomb.

Sources on the appearance of the Apostle Church

Literary sources

The oldest mention of the Apostle Church comes from the Vita Constantini of Eusebius of Caesarea , which was written after the death of Constantine the Great in 337. According to him, the building served both as a church and as a burial place for Constantine. Unfortunately, Eusebius was not interested in a precise description of the architecture and only provides some information on the design of the interior. In addition, one gets the impression that it was a central building . In a poem written around 380, Gregor von Nazianz attested that the Apostle Church had a cruciform shape. Around 400, in a sermon by John Chrysostom, there was for the first time a reference to the fact that the Church of the Apostles and the mausoleum of Constantine the Great were two different buildings. A major renovation of the complex must have taken place since the time of Eusebius. Since John explains that the mausoleum was located in the vestibule of the church and that later sources show that it was adjacent to the east of the church, this suggests that the 4th century building faced west. This was also the case with many other church foundations from the Constantinian period and is similar to the relationship between church and mausoleum in the Helena mausoleum .

More detailed information is available about the appearance of Justinian's new church than about its predecessor from the 4th century. Prokopios of Caesarea witnessed their construction and wrote about Justinian's buildings in his work:

Two straight building sections are connected in the form of a cross, with the main nave facing sunrise and sunset, but the transept facing north and south. From the outside, the two structures are closed off all around with walls, and on the inside they are framed by columns that stand in front and behind. At their intersection - it could be in the middle - there is a place that only priests are allowed to enter and which is accordingly called the Holy of Holies. The two wings of the transept are the same, while the west wing of the main nave is so much longer than the east wing that the shape of the cross is created. The roof structure over the so-called Holy of Holies is similar to that of the Sophienkirche in the middle, only smaller than there. For in the same way the four arches are arched and fit into one another, and the circle above is broken through on the windows; the dome that spans everything gives the impression that it is somehow floating in the air and not resting on the massive masonry; but it is very firm. The roof structure is laid out in the middle. As for the four wings, as I said, they are as high as the middle and only one thing is missing, that the masonry under the dome-shaped part is not pierced by any windows.

The description in verse of the church of the apostles , written in the 10th century by Konstantinos Rhodios and dedicated to Emperor Constantine VII, can further enrich this picture. In each cross arm there were twelve columns both below and on the galleries. The aisles were probably barrel vaulted , the central dome higher than the other four. Each of the domes was supported by four mighty pillars that were connected by barrel vaults. Three cornices ran along the walls in the interior. A few mosaics that adorned the interior and reproduced scenes from the New Testament are also mentioned by Konstantinos. They went likely due to the renovation work under Basil I return. They are described on a larger scale by Nikolaos Mesarites at the end of the 12th century. The Book of Ceremonies of Constantine VII can also serve as a source for some details of the architecture of the Apostle Church. For example, it is mentioned that the main room could be entered from the vestibule through five doors, of which the middle one, as in Hagia Sophia, was reserved for the emperor.

Pictorial representations of the Apostle Church

The transfer of the relics of St. John Chrysostom to the Apostle Church. Miniature from the Menologion of Basil II.

There is no pictorial tradition on the church of the 4th century. Possible representations of the Justinian Apostle Church have been preserved from a total of five medieval manuscripts. On the one hand there are three miniatures from the Menologion of Basil II from the late 10th century, in which the Apostle Church appears as a background motif. The other two come from illustrated manuscripts of the sermon collection of the monk Jakobos Kokkinobaphos from the 12th century. They have been interpreted several times as reproductions of the Apostle Church. It should be said, however, that the miniatures in question are first and foremost scenes of the Ascension, which are decorated with architectural elements such as domes or columns. Nowhere is it stated that it is supposed to be a representation of real architecture, let alone the Apostle Church. So this remains pure speculation. Information about the appearance of the Apostles' Church that goes beyond that from the written tradition cannot be obtained from any of the representations.

Archaeological evidence

For a long time it was assumed that the destruction in the 15th century and the subsequent construction of the Fatih-Camii would not have left any visible remains of the Apostle Church. An operation performed in 2001 Survey , however, revealed that some remaining wall remains most likely in the time before the construction of the mosque must be dated and should be so originally been part of the Church of the Apostles. This enables the position and dimensions of the church to be determined much more precisely than before.

Buildings influenced by the Apostle Church

Until its destruction, the architecture of the Apostle Church served as inspiration for numerous other church buildings. This is already true of the fourth century church. For example, a church built by Bishop Ambrose in Milan at the end of the 4th century was consecrated to the apostles and had a cruciform floor plan. According to Prokopios, Justinian's new building became the model for the St. John's Church of Ephesus, also donated by Justinian, during or immediately after its construction . Although this building was destroyed, it has been well researched archaeologically and has been partially reconstructed. In the 11th century then was in Venice with the St. Mark's Basilica , a still well-preserved example of the reception of the Apostles Church during the Middle Ages. It is similar with the Cathedral of San Sabino, built around the same time in Canosa di Puglia in Apulia . Another example of the architectural influence of the Apostles' Church in Europe is the 12th century St. Front Cathedral in Périgueux in Aquitaine. All of these buildings vary their model in many respects, but they give at least a rough impression of the appearance of the Apostle Church.

  • St. John's Church in Ephesus (6th century)

  • St. Mark's Basilica in Venice (11th century)

  • Périgueux Cathedral (12th century)

literature

  • August Heisenberg : Church of the Holy Sepulcher and Church of the Apostles. Two basilicas of Constantine. Second part: The Apostle Church in Constantinople. Hinrich, Leipzig 1908.
  • Glanville Downey: The Tombs of the Byzantine Emperors in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople . In: Journal of Hellenic Studies . Volume 79, 1959, pp. 27-51.
  • Christine Strube : The western entrance sides of the churches of Constantinople in Justinian times . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1973, ISBN 978-3-447-01567-7 , pp. 131-147.
  • Ann Wharton Epstein: The Rebuilding and Decoration of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. A reconsideration. In: Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies . Volume 23, 1982, pp. 79-92
  • Neslihan Asutay-Effenberger, Arne Effenberger : The porphyry sarcasm of the Eastern Roman emperors. Attempt to record, time and allocate . Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006, v. a. Pp. 99-145.
  • Ken Dark, Ferudun Özgümüş: New Evidence for the Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles from Fatih Camii, Istanbul . In: Oxford Journal of Archeology . Volume 21, 2002, pp. 393-413.
  • Jonathan Harris: Constantinople. Capital of Byzantium . Continuum Books, Hambledon 2007, ISBN 978-1-84725-179-4 .
  • Mark Johnson: The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, ISBN 978-0-521-51371-5 , pp. 119-129.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, Gábor Ágoston, Bruce Alan Masters, p. 216
  2. ↑ It is unclear whether these were cenotaphs , pillars, memorial plaques or the like.
  3. ↑ Cf. Martin Wallraff : The anti-pagan measures of Constantine in the representation of Euseb of Kaisareia . In: Late Antique State and Religious Conflict . Berlin 2011, pp. 7–18, here p. 15f with reference to the relevant literature.
  4. ^ Julian, Oratio 1, 16.
  5. ↑ Socrates 2, 38, tr. Zeno 67.
  6. ↑ Cf. Mark Johnson: The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, pp. 123-126.
  7. ↑ So z. B. Philostorgios 3, 2.
  8. ↑ Cf. Neslihan Asutay-Effenberger, Arne Effenberger: The porphyry sarcasm of the Eastern Roman emperors. Attempt to record, time and allocate . Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006, p. 21.
  9. ↑ Carmen de insomnio Anastasiae vv. 59-60 (PG 37, 1258.)
  10. ↑ Homilia contra Judaeos et Gentiles 9 (PG 48, 825).
  11. ↑ It is mainly about the reports of pilgrims from the High Middle Ages. See Mark Johnson: The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, p. 122.
  12. ↑ Prokopios, De Aedificiis 1, 4; translated by Otto Veh .
  13. ↑ Christine Strube: The western entrance pages of the churches of Constantinople in Justinian times . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1973, p. 132.
  14. ^ Ann Wharton Epstein: The Rebuilding and Decoration of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. A reconsideration . In: Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies . Volume 23, 1982, pp. 79-92.
  15. ^ For example in Richard Krautheimer : Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture . Penguin Books, Harmondsworth 1981, p. 254.
  16. ^ Cf. Ken Dark, Ferudun Özgümüş: New Evidence for the Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles from Fatih Camii, Istanbul . In: Oxford Journal of Archeology . Volume 21, 2002, pp. 393-413.
  17. ↑ Cf. Richard Krautheimer: Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth 1981, p. 86
  18. ↑ Prokopios, De Aedificiis 5.1

Coordinates: 41 ° 1 ′ 11 ″  N , 28 ° 56 ′ 59 ″  E