Eski İmaret Mosque

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Facade of the Eski İmaret Mosque
Mosque dome

The Eski-İmaret Mosque ( Turkish Eski İmaret Camii , also İmâret-i Atîk Camii ) is a former Byzantine church in Istanbul that was rededicated as a mosque. The church is considered to belong to the monastery Christos Pantepoptes ( Greek Μονή του Χριστού Παντεπόπτη ). It is the only surviving 11th century church in Istanbul and a testament to the middle epoch of Byzantine architecture .

location

The building is located in the Zeyrek district of Istanbul's Fatih district within the Theodosian Wall . The mosque is about one kilometer northwest of the Zeyrek Mosque .

history

Anna Dalassene , mother of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I , had a nunnery built on the fourth hill of Constantinople before 1087 , which was dedicated to Christos Pantepoptes . Anna Dalassene also spent her old age there. A church also belonged to the monastery, which was also consecrated to Pantepoptes. It is widely believed that today's mosque was the former monastery church.

On April 12, 1204, Emperor Alexios V moved his headquarters near the monastery during the siege of Constantinople . From this elevated point, the emperor could see the Venetian fleet of Doge Enrico Dandolo , which was anchored in the Golden Horn between Euergetes monastery and Blachernen church . After the conquest, the Byzantine monarch left his purple tent on the run and so Baldwin I spent his first night in the tent. The monastery was sacked by the crusaders and then handed over to the Benedictine order of San Giorgio Maggiore . During the Latin Empire (1204–1261) the building was used as a Roman Catholic church.

Based on this information, the Patriarch Constantius I identified the Eski-İmaret Mosque with the Pantepoptes Church in the 19th century. This identification has since been widely accepted. Only the British Byzantinist Cyril Mango argued that the site did not allow an overview of the Golden Horn and named the region around the Yavuz Sultan Selim Mosque as a possible location for the Pantepoptes Monastery. The art historians Neslihan Asutay-Effenberger and Arne Effenberger agreed with Mango's thesis and proposed the Church of Constantine, founded by Empress Theophanu in the early 10th century, and emphasized the similarities to the Lips monastery .

Shortly after the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453, the church was converted into a mosque and the monastery was converted into a tekke and used as a madrasah and public kitchen ( Turkish imaret ) for the nearby Fatih mosque , which was under construction at the time . The Turkish name Eski İmaret Camii (English: mosque of the old poor kitchen ) refers to this time.

The complex was damaged several times by fire and the last remains of the monastery buildings disappeared around 100 years ago. A Koran school was housed in the building until 1970. In 1970 the building was restored by the Turkish architect Fikret Çuhadaroğlu and then used again as a mosque.

architecture

Look inside

The building is on a slope with a view over the Golden Horn on a platform with a cistern . The surrounding buildings reach right up to the mosque. The masonry is made of brick and stone. A technique was used here in which the bricks were laid in a bed of mortar three times as thick and slightly set back and thus appear to protrude from the wall. The tiles on the roof are unique to the churches and mosques in Istanbul.

The cross- domed church has a central dome and four cross arms. There is also a sanctuary in the east and an inner and an outer narthex in the west. This appears to be an addition to the Palaiologists' days and to have replaced an older portico . The narthex is divided into three yokes . The outer ones are spanned by cross vaults, the inner one by a dome.

The U-shaped gallery running around the narthex is unique. The gallery has openings to the central church space as well as to the cross arm. It is possible that the gallery was built for personal use by the imperial mother Anna Dalassene.

As in many Byzantine churches in Istanbul, the four columns that support the crossing were replaced by pillars and the colonnades on the arms of the cross were closed. The pillars divide the nave into three naves. The side aisles open to the east in cloverleaf-shaped chapels, which are connected to the sanctuary and end in an apse . These two low chapels were Prothesis and Diakonikon . The Ottoman builders renewed the apses and built a minaret that no longer exists.

The dome was changed during the Ottoman period, but was restored to its original shape during the restoration in 1970. The tent-like ceiling of the gallery has been replaced by tiles that follow the shape of the vault.

Meander on the facade

The outer masonry is decorated with meanders, braided patterns and cloisonné . This is typical of the Greek architecture of the time, but otherwise unknown in Constantinople. Nothing has been preserved from the original interior except for a few ornamental bars made of marble, cornices and door frames.

literature

Web links

Commons : Eski İmaret Mosque  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Mathews (1976), p. 59
  2. ↑ Vassilios Kidonopoulos: buildings in Constantinople Opel 1204-1328: decay and destruction, restoration, reconstruction and construction of civil and religious . Harrasowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 1994, pp. 28-30
  3. ↑ a b Van Millingen (1912), p. 214
  4. ^ Jacobi (2001), p. 287
  5. ↑ Asutay-Effenberger, Effenberger (2008), p. 13
  6. ↑ Carin Mango: Where at Constantinople was the Monastery of Christos Pantepoptes? . In: Δελτίον τῆς. Xριστιανικῆς Ἀρχαιολογικῆς Ἑταιρείας , Vol. 20, 1998, p. 87 f.
  7. ↑ Asutay-Effenberger, Effenberger (2008), p. 13 f.
  8. ↑ Asutay-Effenberger, Effenberger (2008), pp. 13-40
  9. ^ Müller-Wiener (1977), Sub Voce .
  10. ↑ Krautheimer (1986), p. 400
  11. ↑ Krautheimer (1986), p. 407

Coordinates: 41 ° 1 ′ 18 ″  N , 28 ° 57 ′ 18 ″  E