Odalar mosque

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The mosque with the Chora church in the background after a fire in 1919 (1920)
The destroyed mosque photographed from the air (1920)

The Odalar Mosque ( Turkish Odalar Camii , also Kemankeş Mustafa Paşa Camii ) was a former Byzantine church and Ottoman mosque in Istanbul . After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 , the church became the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Mary of Constantinople in 1475 and a mosque in 1640. The church was destroyed in a fire in 1919 and has been falling into disrepair ever since. Only a few outer walls remain in the midst of modern residential developments.

It got its name "Barrack Mosque" (sometimes also "Chamber Mosque") from the nearby accommodations of the married Janissaries , which were built in the quarter in the 18th century.

location

The ruins of the building are located in the Salma Tomruk district in Istanbul's Fatih district, not far from Edirnekapı, the old charisis gate of the Theodosian land wall between Chora Church and Fethiye Mosque . The ruin is located in a courtyard between modern residential buildings in Müftu Sokağı 20–22 .

history

Byzantine era

Between the 9th and 10th centuries, a church was built on the old foundations and a crypt, which stood on the top of the seventh hill of Constantinople. The building was on a small plateau with the Aetius cistern (today Vefa Stadium ) and the Bodan Palace, which has not yet been identified . The attribution of the original building has not yet been possible. The assumption is being discussed that as a Katholikon it could have been part of a monastery with the Kasım-Ağa Mosque and the İpek Cistern.

The building has long been equated with the Theotokos Monastery ( en te Petra ) - but without proof. During the Byzantine period there were several monasteries in the area, including the Johannes Monastery of Manuel the Armenian and the Nunnery Theotokos Kecharitomene . The latter was founded at the beginning of the 12th century by Empress Irene Dukaina and was known because of the detailed and still existing typicon . The nearby church Theotokos tas Kellararias , used by the nuns of the Karithomene order and those of the Hagios Nikolaos order as a burial place, both of which are mentioned in the typicon of the order, is a possible attribution. In addition, the Odalar Mosque could be the same as the Sergios and Bakchos Church, which was plesion tes Aetiou kinsternes ( Greek near the Cistern of Aetios ). This is not to be confused with the Little Hagia Sophia , which also bore this name. The reason for the attribution is the discovery of a monogrammed capital nearby, which unfortunately was not found in situ . The attribution of the patronage has not yet been conclusively clarified.

Between 1150 and 1175 a new cross-domed church was built over the old one, which may have been destroyed by a fire or a landslide.

Ottoman time

The Genoese fortress of Caffa. From here the Genoese were resettled to the Kefeli district in Istanbul.

The first written mention comes from 1475, when the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II conquered the Genoese colony of Caffa in the Crimea. Over 40,000 Latins , Greeks, Armenians and Jews from Caffa (“Caffariots”, Turkish Kefeli ) were deported to Istanbul and settled in the district that has since been called Kefe Mahallesi . The Latins, especially the Genoese , were allowed to use this building as a church, as well as the Saint Nicholas Church (today Kefeli Mosque .

Saint Mary of Constantinople ( Italian Santa Maria di Costantinopoli ) was cared for by the Dominican order, who owned a monastery on the Black Sea before the conquest of Constantinople. In the church there was a large-format Hodegetria icon from Caffa for a long time , which is now kept in the Dominican monastery of St. Peter and Paul in Galata . At the beginning of the 16th century, St. Maria was the center of the district where mainly Italians lived. Under Sultan Murad IV , the decision was made to settle the Christians outside the city walls, since they were not Ottoman citizens and to settle them in Galata and Pera (today Beyoğlu ). As a result, there were violent clashes between Christians and Muslims. The church was closed in 1636 and converted into a mosque in 1640 by the Grand Vizier Kemankeş Mustafa Pascha .

After the Janissaries were housed in the neighborhood in 1782, the mosque was given the nickname Odalar . In Turkish, Odalar means room (plural), but also stands for the barracks of the Janissaries. Before that they lived in the Eski Odalar ("Old Barracks") near the Şehzade Mosque , which was destroyed in a fire in 1782.

The building fell into disrepair in the following years. In the middle of the 19th century the dome supported and the building was badly damaged in a fire on July 2, 1919. When the neighborhood was modernized, the mosque was not restored and it fell into disrepair. Today only a few parts of the outer walls in the rear area have been preserved.

architecture

The building was constructed in several phases during the Byzantine era. The first church was built in the middle Byzantine era, had a rectangular floor plan of approximately 11.65 × 10 meters with three apses and was oriented to the east. In 1935 one could still see the three-part chancel and the bema . The church was built over a basement with 24 rooms with barrel vaults and a crypt with apse, which was probably used as a chapel with relics. The rooms were originally used for secular things, then were burial places and finally cistern.

The second church was built at the end of the 12th century, used 16 small rooms of the first church as a basement and was two-story. The masonry consisted of ashlar, shaped with strips of brick laid in thick layers of mortar, typical of the middle Byzantine era. This technique involved placing narrow bricks in a thick bed of mortar about three to five times as thick as the individual bricks and up to four inches. For this purpose, another layer of brick was hidden behind the mortar layer between two rows of bricks. In this building, three or four rows of bricks were laid alternately with a row of stones, with the bricks also being laid in different patterns.

The second church was built as a cross-domed church with a naos 10.5 meters wide. Four pillars supported a dome with pendentives . The structure had three apses in the west - the central one with a polygonal floor plan - and a narthex in the east. The dome was 4.4 meters in diameter, sat on a drum and was decorated with frescoes. To the east of the naos was a sanctuary, which was divided into Bema, Prothesis and Diakonikon . The floor of the new church was 3.3 meters above that of the first church. The sacred building is considered to be a medium-sized Byzantine church, which was constructed similarly to the nearby church of Christ Pantepoptes . The vaults were made using pure brick technology.

From a story by Pietro Demarchis , Bishop of Santorini and apostolic visitor to Istanbul in 1622, we know that the stone pillars of the church were removed by the Ottomans and replaced by wooden ones and that the dome was frescoed. In addition, the building was already in poor condition. Shortly after the conversion into a mosque, the building got a mihrab , a minbar and a minaret . After the fire in 1919, the building fell into disrepair and the roof and minaret had collapsed.

It is known from the Greek scholar Alexandros G. Paspates that in the eastern part of the cellar a holy spring of the Christians rose, which was consecrated to John the Baptist.

Paintings

In 1934/35 the German archaeologist Paul Schatzmann examined the ruins. During the excavations, up to four layers of mortar with frescoes on a blue background were uncovered. A fresco showed a Madonna with angels on a throne and was found in the crypt. Fragments of pictures with burial themes were found in the rooms of the basement. Two Deësis representations were found in the parts of the lower church . A fresco showed St. Mercurius - unprecedented among the Byzantine works of the time - and another several prophets. The frescoes in the first church were made in the 10th or mid-11th century. The diaconicon of the second church showed some saints and episodes from the life of the Virgin Mary. The well-preserved frescoes, including the representation of Mercury, were removed, restored and are now on display in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

literature

  • Michail Wladimirowitsch Alpatow : The frescoes of the Odalar-Djami in Constantinople. In: Byzantine Journal . Volume 26, Issue 1, pp. 373-379, ISSN  0007-7704
  • Raymond Janin: La Géographie Ecclésiastique de l'Empire Byzantin . 1st part: Le Siège de Constantinople et le Patriarcat Oecuménique of the 3rd volume: Les Églises et les Monastères . Institut Français d'Etudes Byzantines, Paris 1953.
  • Ernest Mamboury : The Tourists' Istanbul . Çituri Biraderler Basımevi, Istanbul 1953.
  • Semavi Eyice : Istanbul. Petite Guide a travers les Monuments Byzantins et Turcs . Istanbul Matbaası, Istanbul 1955.
  • Çelik Gülersoy : A Guide to Istanbul . Istanbul Kitaplığı, Istanbul 1976.
  • Wolfgang Müller-Wiener : Bildlexikon on the topography of Istanbul: Byzantion, Konstantinupolis, Istanbul up to the beginning of the 17th century . Wasmuth, Tübingen 1977, ISBN 3-8030-1022-5 .
  • Richard Krautheimer : Architettura paleocristiana e bizantina . Einaudi, Turin 1986, ISBN 88-06-59261-0 .
  • Stephan Westphalen : The Odalar Camii in Istanbul. Architecture and painting of a Middle Byzantine church . Wasmuth, Tübingen 1998, ISBN 3-8030-1741-6 .

Web links

Commons : Odalar Mosque  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Müller-Wiener (1977), p. 188.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Westphalen (1998), p. 1.
  3. ↑ Westphalen (1998) p. 40.
  4. ↑ a b c Eyice (1955) p. 72.
  5. ↑ Janin (1953), p. 196.
  6. ^ Westphalen (1998), p. 2.
  7. ↑ Janin (1953), p. 559.
  8. ↑ cf. on this in detail Neslihan Asutay-Effenberger : The monastery of Ioannes Prodromos τής Пέτρας in Constantinople and its relationship to the Odala around Kasιm Ağa Camii. In: Millennium Yearbook. Volume 5, 2008, pp. 299-326.
  9. ↑ Westphalen (1998) p. 43.
  10. ↑ a b c d e f Mamboury 1953) p. 308.
  11. ↑ a b c d Westphalen (1998), p. 48.
  12. ^ Westphalen (1998), p. 49.
  13. ↑ Gülersoy (1976) p. 249.
  14. ↑ a b c Westphalen (1998) p. 52.
  15. ↑ Westphalen (1998) p. 37.
  16. ↑ Westphalen (1998) p. 24.
  17. ↑ Westphalen (1998) p. 47.
  18. ↑ a b c d e Janin (1953), p. 560.
  19. ↑ a b Westphalen (1998) p. 53.
  20. ↑ a b Westphalen (1998) p. 78.
  21. ↑ Krautheimer (1986), p. 400.
  22. ↑ a b Nikolai Brunow: The Odalar-Djami of Constantinople. In: Byzantinische Zeitschrift, Volume 26, Issue 1, ISSN  0007-7704 , pp. 352-372.
  23. ↑ Westphalen (1998) p. 60.
  24. ↑ Westphalen (1998) p. 67.
  25. ^ Westphalen (1998), p. 5.
  26. ↑ a b Westphalen (1998) p. 85.

Coordinates: 41 ° 1 ′ 44.7 ″  N , 28 ° 56 ′ 23.4 ″  E