Read Ebook: Byzantine Churches in Constantinople: Their History and Architecture by George Walter S Henderson Arthur E Arthur Edward Traquair Ramsay Van Millingen Alexander

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It is not probable that the church was converted into a mosque before 1591, when the patriarchal seat was removed from the Pammakaristos to S. Demetrius beside the Xyloporta. Nor could the conversion have been later than 1598, the year in which Achmed Pasha--who converted the building into a mosque--died.

Phrantzes, p. 307.

Patr. Constantius, p. 80.

Balsamon, vol. i. col. 501 .

Theoph. p. 541.

Pachym. i. p. 405.

Cf. Paspates, p. 304.

THE CHURCH OF S. THEKLA, TOKLOU IBRAHIM DED? MESJEDI

NOTE ON THE CHURCH OF S. THEKLA

A second consideration in support of this identification is the statement made by Achmed Rifaat Effendi, that before the church became a mosque it was known by the name of its founder, 'Isakias.' For it is a matter of history that the church of S. Thekla was restored by the Emperor Isaac Comnenus in the eleventh century. The association of his name with the building was therefore perfectly natural, if the building is indeed the old church of S. Thekla, otherwise it is difficult to account for that association.

There is, however, one objection to this identification that must not be overlooked. According to Byzantine authorities, the church of S. Thekla stood in the palace of Blachernae . That palace occupied the heights above Aivan Serai, on which the quarter of Egri Kapou and the mosque of Aivas Effendi now stand, within the walls that enclose the western spur of the Sixth Hill. Toklou Ibrahim Ded? Mesjedi, however, does not stand within that enclosure, but immediately to the north of it, on the level tract that stretches from the foot of the Sixth Hill to the Golden Horn. If the reasons in favour of regarding the mosque as S. Thekla were less strong, this objection would, perhaps, be fatal. But the strip of land between the northern wall of the palace enclosure and the sea is so narrow, and was so closely connected with the life of the imperial residence, that a building on that tract might with pardonable inaccuracy be described, as 'in the palace.'

The church is mentioned for the first time in the earlier half of the eighth century as a chapel which Thekla, the eldest daughter of the Emperor Theophilus, restored and attached to her residence at Blachernae. The princess was an invalid, and doubtless retired to this part of the city for the sake of its mild climate. To dedicate the chapel to her patron saint was only natural. As already intimated, the church was rebuilt from the foundations, in the eleventh century, by Isaac Comnenus, in devout gratitude for his escape from imminent death in the course of his campaign against the barbarous tribes beside the Danube, when he was overtaken at the foot of the Lovitz mountain by a furious tempest of rain and snow. The plain on which his army was encamped soon became a sheet of water, and many of his men and animals were drowned or frozen to death. Thunder, lightning, and hurricane combined to produce an awful scene, and there were moments when the whole world seemed on fire. The emperor took shelter under a large oak, but, fearing the tree might be thrown down by the furious wind, he soon made for open ground. Scarcely had he done so when the oak was torn up by the roots and hurled to the earth. A few moments later the emperor would have been killed. This narrow escape occurred on the 24th September, the festival day of S. Thekla, and, therefore, attributing his deliverance to her intervention, Isaac rebuilt and greatly beautified the old sanctuary dedicated to her in Blachernae, and frequently attended services there in her honour. Anna Comnena speaks of the restored church in the highest terms. According to her it was built at great cost, displayed rare art, and was in every way worthy of the occasion which led to its erection. Zonaras is not so complimentary. He describes the church as a monument of the niggardliness of Isaac Comnenus. In any case, it was pulled down and rebuilt in the following century by the Emperor John Comnenus in splendid style, and dedicated to the Saviour. As the beauty and wealth of a Byzantine sanctuary were exhibited in the lavish adornment of the interior, it is possible that the church of S. Thekla, though small and outwardly plain, may have been a beautiful and rich building in its latest Christian character. It had then the honour of seeing among the worshippers before its altar Anna Dalassena, the mother of the Comneni. For, when charged with the government of the Empire during the absence of Alexius Comnenus from the capital, that able woman came often to pray in this church, 'lest she should be immersed in merely secular affairs.'

The building is an oblong hall, m. 13.55 by m. 5.4, divided into three compartments. It is now covered with a wooden roof, but the arrangements of the breaks or pilasters on the walls indicate that it had originally a dome. At the east end is a single apse, the usual side-apses being represented by two niches. The western compartment served as a narthex. During the repairs of the mosque in 1890, frescoes of the eikons which once decorated the walls were brought to view. On the exterior the apse shows three sides, crowned with a corbelled cornice. The central side is pierced by a window of good workmanship, divided by a shaft into two lights, and above the window are two short blind concave niches. High blind concave niches indent the other sides of the apse. In the northern wall are the remains of a triple window, divided by shafts built in courses. Above this is a row of three small windows.

Paspates, p. 359.

For this information I am indebted to Rev. H. O. Dwight, LL.D., late of the American Board of Missions in Constantinople.

Paspates, p. 357, note.

Anna Comnena, vol. i. p. 168.

Scylitzes, p. 647 ; Zonaras, iii. p. 672.

If the mosque Aivas Effendi could be proved to stand on the site of a church, the argument against the identification of Toklou Ded? Mesjedi with the church of S. Thekla would be stronger.

Theoph. Cont. p. 147.

Anna Comnena, vol. i. p. 168.

Zonaras, iii. p. 672.

Anna Comnena, vol. i. p. 169.

THE CHURCH OF S. SAVIOUR PANTEPOPTES, ESKI IMARET MESJEDI

S. Saviour Pantepoptes is the most carefully built of the later churches of Constantinople. The little irregularities of setting out so common in the other churches of the city are here almost entirely absent. This accuracy of building, the carving of the string-courses, and the remains of marble decoration both within and on the exterior, prove exceptional care.

For details see Figs. 68, 72, 75.

Patr. Constantius, pp. 70-80.

Nicet. Chon. p. 752.

Glycas, p. 622.

Nicet. Chon. pp. 315-16; Pachym. i. pp. 314-15, ii. p. 185.

Paspates, p. 314.

Paspates, p. 314.

THE CHURCH OF S. SAVIOUR PANTOKRATOR, ZE?REK KILISSI JAMISSI

According to the tradition current in the city when Gyllius and Gerlach explored the antiquities of Constantinople, the large Byzantine church, now the mosque Ze?rek Kilissi Jamissi, overlooking the Golden Horn from the heights above Oun Kapan, was the famous church of S. Saviour Pantokrator. There is no reason for doubting the accuracy of this identification. The church was so important, and so closely associated with events which occurred late in the history of the city, that its identity could not be forgotten by the Greek ecclesiastical authorities soon after the Turkish conquest. Moreover, all indications of the position of the church, although too vague to determine its precise site, are in harmony with the tradition on the subject. For, according to Russian pilgrims to the shrines of Constantinople, the Pantokrator could be reached most readily from the side of the city on the Golden Horn, and stood in the vicinity of the church of the Holy Apostles--particulars that agree with the situation of Ze?rek Kilissi Jamissi.

But the pious and charitable lady had undertaken more than she could perform, and was obliged to turn to the emperor for sympathy and assistance. Accordingly she took him, one day, to see the edifice while in course of erection, and falling suddenly at his feet, implored him with tears to complete her work. The beauty of the building and the devotion of his wife appealed so strongly to John Comnenus that he forthwith vowed to make the church and monastery the finest in the city, and altogether worthy of the Pantokrator to whom they were dedicated; and so well did he keep his promise, that the honour of being the founder of the church has been bestowed on him by the historian Nicetas Choniates.

The imperial typicon or charter of the monastery, granted in 1136, made the monastery an autonomous institution, independent of the patriarch or the prefect of the city, and exempt from taxes of every description. At the same time it was provided with vineyards and richly endowed.

According to Scarlatus Byzantius and the Patriarch Constantius, a mosaic in the building portrayed the Emperor Manuel Comnenus in the act of presenting the model of the church to Christ. If that was the case the church was completed by that emperor. As will immediately appear, Manuel certainly enriched the church with relics.

The history of the Pantokrator may be conveniently divided into three periods: the period of the Comneni; the period of the Latin Empire; and the period of the Palaeologi.

During the first the following incidents occurred: Here, as was most fitting, the founders of the church and monastery were laid to rest, the Empress Irene in 1126, the Emperor John Comnenus seventeen years later. Here their elder son Isaac was confined, until the succession to the throne had been settled in favour of his younger brother Manuel. That change in the natural order of things had been decided upon by John Comnenus while he lay dying in Cilicia from the effects of a wound inflicted by the fall of a poisoned arrow out of his own quiver, when boar-hunting in the forests of the Taurus Mountains, and was explained as due to Manuel's special fitness to assume the care of the Empire, and not merely to the fact that he was a father's favourite son. But when the appointment was made Manuel was with his father in Cilicia, while Isaac was in Constantinople, in a position to mount the throne as soon as the tidings of John's death reached the capital.

The prospect that Manuel would wear the crown seemed therefore very remote. But Axuch, an intimate friend and counsellor of the dying emperor, started for Constantinople the moment Manuel was nominated, and travelled so fast, that he reached the city before the news of the emperor's death and of Manuel's nomination was known there. Then, wasting no time, Axuch made sure of the person of Isaac, removed him from the palace, and put him in charge of the monks of the Pantokrator, who had every reason to be loyal to the wishes of the deceased sovereign. The wily courtier then set himself to win the leading men in the capital over to the cause of the younger brother, and, by the time Manuel was prepared to enter Constantinople, had secured for him a popular welcome and the surrender of Isaac's claims.

In 1147, the famous eikon of S. Demetrius of Thessalonia was transferred from the magnificent basilica dedicated to the saint in that city to the Pantokrator. This was done by the order of Manuel Comnenus, at the request of Joseph, then abbot of the monastery, and in accordance with the wishes of the emperor's parents, the founders of the House. It was a great sacrifice to demand of the Macedonian shrine, and by way of compensation a larger and more artistic eikon of S. Demetrius, in silver and gold, was hung beside his tomb. But Constantinople rejoiced in the greater sanctity and virtue of the earlier picture, and when tidings of its approach were received, the whole fraternity of the Pantokrator, with the senate and an immense crowd of devout persons, went seven miles out from the city to hail the arrival of the image, and to bear it in triumph to its new abode, with psalms and hymns, lighted tapers, fragrant incense, and the gleam of soldiers' spears. Thus, it was believed, the monastery gained more beauty and security, the dynasty of the Comneni more strength, the Roman Empire and the Queen of cities an invisible but mighty power to keep enemies afar off.

In 1158 Bertha, the first wife of Manuel Comnenus, and sister-in-law of the Emperor Conrad of Germany, was buried in the church. Twenty-two years later, Manuel Comnenus himself was laid in its hero?n in a splendid sarcophagus of black marble with a cover cut in seven protuberances. Beside the tomb was placed the porphyry slab upon which the body of Christ was supposed to have been laid after His deposition from the cross. The slab was placed there in commemoration of the fact that when it was brought from Ephesus to Constantinople, Manuel carried it on his broad shoulders all the way up the hill from the harbour of the Bucoleon , to the private chapel of the imperial residence near S. Sophia. Nicetas Choniates thought the aspect of the tomb and of its surroundings very significant. The seven protuberances on its cover represented the seven-hilled city which had been the emperor's throne; the porphyry slab recalled the mighty deeds which he whose form lay so still and silent in the grave had wrought in the days of his strength; while the black marble told the grief evoked by his death. Robert of Clari, who saw the tomb in 1203, extols its magnificence. 'Never,' says he, 'was born on this earth a holy man or a holy woman who is buried in so rich and splendid a fashion as this emperor in this abbey. There is found the marble table on which Our Lord was laid when taken down from the cross, and there are still seen the tears which Our Lady shed upon it.'

During the Latin occupation the church was appropriated for worship according to the ritual of the Roman Communion, and many of its relics, its vessels of gold and silver, its jewels and vestments, were carried off to enrich S. Mark's at Venice, and other shrines of Western Christendom. How great a value was set upon such trophies, and by what strange methods they were secured, is seen in the account which Guntherus, a contemporary historian, gives of the way in which some of the relics of the church were acquired. As soon as the Crusaders captured the city in 1204 and gave it over to pillage, a numerous band of looters made for the Pantokrator in search of spoil, having heard that many valuables had been deposited for safe keeping within the strong walls around the monastery. Among the crowd hastening thither was Martin, abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Parisis in Alsace, who accompanied the Crusade as chaplain and chronicler. The fever of plunder raging about him was too infectious for the good man to escape. When everybody else was getting rich he could not consent to remain poor. His only scruple was not to defile his holy hands with the filthy lucre which worldlings coveted. To purloin sacred relics, however, was lawful booty. Entering, therefore, the Pantokrator with his chaplain, Martin accosted a venerable, white-bearded man who seemed familiar with the building, and in stentorian tones demanded where the relics of the church were to be found. The person addressed was, in fact, a priest, though Martin had mistaken him for a layman on account of the strangeness of the Greek clerical garb. The priest did not understand Latin any more than the abbot understood Greek, and the situation became awkward, for the pitch of Martin's voice made it evident that he was not a person to be trifled with. The old man therefore tried what the Romance patois, which he had picked up from foreign residents in the city, could do to establish intelligible intercourse with the rough visitor. Fortunately the crusader also knew something of that patois, and made the purpose of his visit sufficiently clear. As soon as the iron safe containing the coveted relics was opened, abbot and chaplain plunged four greedy hands into the hoard and stowed relic after relic under the ample folds of their robes until there was no room for more. Thus laden, the pious thieves made as fast as they could for the ship in which they had come to Constantinople, not stopping to converse with friends on the way, and giving to all curious inquiries the brief and enigmatical reply, 'We have done well.' Upon reaching the ship Martin found himself the happy possessor of no less than sixty-two relics, including a piece of the Holy Cross, and drops of 'the blood shed for man's redemption.' Martin wished to start immediately for Alsace, but circumstances obliged him to remain in Constantinople for several months. Thanks, however, to the priest of the Pantokrator, whom the abbot had treated generously, Martin secured a small chapel where to conceal his spoils until an opportunity to return home should occur. A fellow-countryman, indeed, the only other person let into the secret, advised him to secure by means of the relics an abbotship, if not a bishopric, in the Holy Land. But Martin was above personal ambition, and notwithstanding all the difficulties involved in the attempt to carry the relics to the West, waited patiently till he could smuggle them out of the city. At length his chance came; whereupon he embarked for Venice, and after a hard and tedious journey of eight months reached home safely. Again and again on the way he had narrowly escaped the loss of his treasures at the hands of pirates on the sea and of brigands upon land. But all toils and dangers were forgotten when, on the 24th of June 1205, at the head of the brotherhood of which he was the chief, Martin placed the relics purloined from the Pantokrator of Constantinople upon the high altar of the church of Parisis with a conqueror's pride and joy, while the people shouted, 'Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.' There is archaeology even in morals.

The first incident in the history of the Pantokrator after the restoration of the Greek Empire was not fortunate. The monastery then became the object upon which the Genoese, who had favoured that event, and been rewarded with the grant of Galata as a trading post, saw fit to vent the grudge they bore against certain Venetians who, in the course of the feud between the two republics, as competitors for the commerce of the East, had injured a church and a tower belonging to the Genoese colony at Acre. To destroy some building in Constantinople associated with Venice was thought to be the best way to settle the outstanding account, and so a band of Genoese made for the Pantokrator, over which the banner of S. Mark had recently floated, and tore the monastery down to the ground, making it a greater ruin than the Venetians had made of the Genoese buildings in Syria. Then, not only to deprive the enemy of his property but to turn it also to one's own advantage, the scattered stones were collected and shipped to Genoa for the construction of the church of S. George in that city.

In the reign of Michael Palaeologus, a member of the noble family of the princes of the Peloponnesus became abbot of the Pantokrator, and acquired great influence. He led, as we shall see, the mission which conducted the emperor's daughter Maria to the Mongolian court, and when the patriarchal seat was vacant in 1275, a strong party favoured his appointment to that position instead of Veccus.

In 1407 John Palaeologus, then heir-apparent, added to the endowments of the church by giving it a share in the revenues of the imperial domains at Cassandra. It would appear that the affairs of the monastery about this time were not in a satisfactory state, for on the advice of the historian Phrantzes they were put for settlement into the hands of Macarius, a monk from Mt. Athos.

Upon the capture of the city, the Greek community, owing to the recent death of the Patriarch Athanasius, found itself without an ecclesiastical chief. The conqueror, anxious to conciliate his Greek subjects, proclaimed complete religious toleration, and gave orders that they should forthwith proceed to the free election of a new patriarch. Under the circumstances there could be no question as to the right man for the place. Gennadius, who had opposed the unprofitable Latin alliance, and saved the national Church notwithstanding the ruin of the Empire, was unanimously chosen to be the first guide of his people along the strange and difficult path they were now to follow. The choice being confirmed by the Sultan, Gennadius left the Pantokrator to do homage to the new master of the realm. Every mark of honour was paid to the prelate. He was invited to the royal table and granted a long audience, at which, following the practice of Byzantine emperors, the Sultan presented him with a magnificent pastoral staff, and promised to respect all the ancient privileges of the patriarchal see. When Gennadius took leave, the Sultan accompanied him to the foot of the stairs of the palace, saw him mounted on a fine and richly caparisoned horse, and ordered the notables of the court to escort him to the church of the Holy Apostles, which was to replace S. Sophia as the cathedral of the Greek Communion. It was certainly fortunate for the Orthodox Church at that cruel moment in its history to find in one of the cells of the Pantokrator a man able to win the goodwill of the Empire's conqueror. When nothing could save the State, Gennadius saved the nation's Church, and with the Church many forms of national life. Muralt, looking at these transactions from another standpoint, says, 'C'est ainsi que les Grecs virent accompli leur voeu d'?tre d?livr?s de l'union avec les Latins.'

It would appear that the Pantokrator was abandoned by its Christian owners very soon after the conquest. The great decrease of the Greek population that followed the downfall of the city left several quarters of Constantinople with few if any Christian inhabitants, and so brought to an end the native religious service in many churches of the capital. For some time thereafter the deserted building was used by fullers and workers in leather as a workshop and dwelling. But the edifice was too grand to be allowed to suffer permanent degradation, and some twenty years later it was consecrated to Moslem worship by a certain Ze?rek Mehemed Effendi. Its actual name, Ze?rek Kilissi Jamissi, recalls the double service the building has rendered, and the person who diverted it from its earlier to its later use.

As it stands the Pantokrator is a combination of three churches, placed side by side, and communicating with one another through arched openings in their common walls. The three buildings are not of the same date, and opinions differ in regard to their relative age. On the whole, however, the northern church may be safely considered the earliest structure; the central church is somewhat later; the southern church is the latest.

The central church probably served as a mausoleum for the tombs of the imperial personages interred at the Pantokrator. In its form and in the arrangement of its domes, as well as in its position on the south of the church to which it strictly belongs, it resembles the parecclesion of S. Saviour in the Chora .

As explained, the gynaeceum above the inner narthex is divided by the open central bay of that narthex into two compartments, each consisting of two bays. The bays to the south are narrow, with transverse arches of decidedly elliptical form. A window divided by shafts in three lights, now built up, stood in the bay at the extreme south, and similar windows looked down into the open bay of the narthex from the bays on either hand. The northern compartment of the gynaeceum connects with the gynaeceum of the north church.

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