Koca Mustafa Pasha Mosque
The Koca Mustafa Pasha Mosque ( Turkish Koca Mustafa Paşa Camii ; today officially Sünbül Efendi Camii ) is a former Byzantine church and today's mosque in Istanbul . The church and the adjoining monastery were dedicated to Andrew of Crete and were called Saint Andrew in Krisei . The history of the church goes back to the fifth century after Christ.
location
The church is located in Istanbul's Fatih district in the Kocamustafapaşa district on Koca Mustafa Paşa Caddesi .
history
Byzantine period
At the beginning of the 5th century AD, the princess Arcadia, daughter of the Eastern Roman emperor Arcadius and sister of his successor Theodosius II , commissioned the construction of a church dedicated to St. Andreas monastery within the Theodosian Wall not far from the Studion Monastery on the slopes of the seventh hill of Constantinople and near the Sea of Marmara . The building, which was also called Rodophylion ( Greek Ροδοφύλιον ), was about 600 meters west of the old Golden Gate. The monastery later became a nunnery, which was first mentioned in 792 AD. The location in Krisei got the monastery from the place where it was built. Because of the burial of convicts, the place was given the name Krisei ( Greek ή Κρίσις , hē Krisis , dt. The judgment ). The martyr Andrew of Crete was on 20 November 766 in Ochs forum because of its commitment to the worship of images in Byzantine iconoclasm killed because he so against the policy of Emperor Constantine V had asked. Due to its popularity after the restoration of the worship of images, the patronage was changed from Apostle Andrew to Andrew of Crete and the monk was buried here. During the second half of the 9th century, the Byzantine emperor Basil I renewed the church, which might have been damaged during the iconoclasm.
Around 1284, Princess Theodora Raoulaina , niece of Emperor Michael VIII and wife of Protovestiarius Johannes Raul Petraliphas , had the monastery and church renovated and is therefore considered the second donor ( ktētorissa ). Theodora spent the last 15 years of her life in the monastery until her death in 1303.
After the conquest of Byzantium by Venetian crusaders and the installation of the Latin Empire, the monastery fell into disrepair. Two Russian pilgrims who visited Constantinople in 1350 and between 1425 and 1450 mentioned the church in their records and reported that the church had become a place of pilgrimage for the sick. At the beginning of the 15th century the monastery was surrounded by vineyards.
Ottoman time
After the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans , the monastery, called Kızlar Kilisesi (Church of Our Lady) by the Ottomans , was still inhabited for some time. Between 1486 and 1491, the commander of the palace guard and later Grand Vizier Koca Mustafa Pascha had the church converted into a mosque. A few years later his son-in-law Şeih Çelebi Efendi gave the monastery to the dervishes of the Halveti order as Tekke . The head of the dervishes was the Sufi master Sünbül Efendi . Its Türbe , a popular place of pilgrimage for Muslims, is next to the church. Şeih Çelebi died in 1559. He and his wife were also buried in a Türbe near the Mustafa Pascha Türbe in the garden of the mosque. Several Halveti sheikhs are buried in the nearby cemetery of the mosque.
Early 17th century was the Defterdar a Ekmekçizade Ahmet Pasha madrassah also build several gates, a Zaviye and a school ( Mekteb ). A century later, Hekimbaşı Giridli Nuh Efendi closed the Sufi monastery and enlarged the madrasah. In 1737 the Kızlar Ağası Hacı Beşir Ağa donated a fountain.
An earthquake in 1766 destroyed the mosque's dome. It was rebuilt two years later. In the 19th century Mahmud II had the vestibule renewed. In 1847/48, Sultan Abdülmecid I commissioned the construction of the walls that surrounded the property. A few years later, two fountains were built in the courtyard of the mosque.
In 1953 the building was extensively restored.
architecture
The church had a central dome and three apses to the east. On the west side there is an inner and an outer narthex , on the other three sides the central naos could be bypassed by arcades with barrel vaults . After the city was conquered by the Ottomans, the church was greatly changed and converted into a mosque. At the entrance on the north side, the Ottoman builders created a portico with five domes. The central dome, which was destroyed in 1766 and rebuilt two years later, is round inside and octagonal outside, the drum has eight windows.
Two half-domes were added to the north and south sides of the dome in Ottoman times. Both are broken by three large windows that look like dormers from the outside . All domes rest on arches. The eastern arch of the central dome is elongated into a barrel vault and is flanked by niches that formerly led to the prothesis and the diakonicon . Only the Diakonikon with its cross vault has been preserved. In the western arch there is a three-arched arcade with two marble columns with cubic capitals .
The inner narthex is divided into three yokes . The north is spanned by an Ottoman dome, the middle by a barrel vault and the south by a cross vault. The latter two are of Byzantine origin.
The outer narthex is divided into five yokes. The three inner yokes correspond to the three yokes of the inner narthex. A flat pendentive dome sits on the central yoke . The yoke is separated from the two middle yokes by columns with pilasters behind them . The two central bays have cross vaults with Ionic capitals similar to those in the Little Hagia Sophia . The two outer yokes have flat domes and are separated from the others by pilasters.
The exterior of the mosque is now characterized by an Ottoman style and has a surrounding cornice . The reels of the semi-domes also have cornices. The drum and central dome were built from smooth stones; they alternate on the drum with three rows of bricks in mortar. There is also a cornice on the dome. The roof of the dome was covered with lead sheets.
The buildings of the Byzantine monastery no longer exist. Only one underground cistern in the southeast of the mosque has been preserved. A carved door frame from the Byzantine era, probably from the 6th century, is now housed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum .
Traditions
The now widespread tradition of illuminating the minarets of mosques on the eve of the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed ( Maulid an-Nabī ) was established in the Koca Mustafa Pasha Mosque.
In the Ottoman period, the tradition of a chain that hangs on a cypress tree and is supposed to recognize the truth arose. The cypress has long been dead and stands propped up in a small round building in the courtyard of the mosque. The chain attached to it swung between two people who had made contradicting statements. The one who touched the chain was telling the truth. This folkloric story is just one of several that belong to the mosque and still have its roots in Byzantine times.
literature
- Alexander Van Millingen: Byzantine Churches of Constantinople . MacMillan & Co, London 1912
- Raymond Janin: La Géographie Ecclésiastique de l'Empire Byzantin . (= 1st part: Le Siège de Constantinople et le Patriarcat Oecuménique, Volume 3 Les Églises et les Monastères ), Institut Français d'Etudes Byzantines, Paris 1953
- Wolfgang Müller-Wiener : Bildlexikon on the topography of Istanbul: Byzantion, Konstantinupolis, Istanbul up to the beginning of the 17th century . Wasmuth, Tübingen 1977, ISBN 978-3-8030-1022-3
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Janin (1953), p. 34
- ↑ Müller-Wiener (1977), p. 172.
- ↑ Janin (1953), p. 35.
- ↑ a b c d Müller-Wiener (1977), p. 173
- ↑ a b c Müller-Wiener (1977), p. 174
- ↑ a b Çelik Gülersoy : A Guide to Istanbul . Istanbul Kitaplığı, Istanbul 1976 p. 262
- ↑ a b Müller-Wiener (1977), p. 175.
- ↑ a b c d e Van Millingen (1912), p. 115
- ↑ a b Van Millingen (1912), p. 114.
- ↑ Van Millingen (1912), p. 113.
- ^ Ernest Mamboury : The Tourists' Istanbul . Çituri Biraderler Basımevi, Istanbul 1953, p. 258.
- ^ Van Millingen (1912), p. 107.
Coordinates: 41 ° 0 ′ 12.2 " N , 28 ° 55 ′ 43" E