St. Irene Church

Istanbul is the city of history and antiquity. The oldest church in Istanbul is St. Irene Church...

Church of Constantinople

This ancient church was constructed during the reign of Emperor Constantine, who ordered his subjects to accept Christianity and gradually began to move away in relations with the pagans. Once there was an ancient pagan temple on a hill above the Golden Horn. It was demolished and transformed into a basilica. In fact, it was the Church of Constantinople, where in the end of 4 century the church fathers held the second Ecumenical Council, which identified a number of Christian tenets.

Church and cemetery

Unfortunately, the history of this church has been closely associated with the city disasters. There were several religious clashes in 346, and several thousand people were killed. They buried them here. The next tragedy occurred in 532, during the events of the so-called Nika Revolt. The townspeople who wanted to overthrow the Emperor Theodosius made a rout in the church and set it on fire, making the building almost completely destroyed. The Church of St. Irene saw bloody clashes during the era of iconoclasm, when the antagonists of frescoes and mosaics attacked the temple, while its defenders fought off. This church went through much blood... Finally, the last test occurred in the 8th century, when the empire was oppressed by the Arabs, Slavs and Khazars. During the earthquake the church was thoroughly destroyed and underwent its third reconstruction. But it was not so important, because the main church of Constantinople became the Cathedral of St. Sophia.

Exceptional church

Once Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turks, they first reorganized its churches into the mosques. For some very mysterious reasons Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror ordered to leave the Church of St. Irene in peace, and for a long time they held here Christian worships. But when the construction of Topkapi complex began, including the Church of St. Irene, the Sultan hesitated whether to leave Christian Church on the territory or not. They decided that it was impossible, but still didn’t dare to reorganize this temple into a mosque. They just closed the building, and for some time used it to store weapons of Janissaries (the Sultan’s Guard). In the 19 century it was transformed into a museum, and now they hold concerts here. After all, the acoustics at St. Irene Church in Istanbul is really unique...