Once upon a time, ancient Constantinople was both the center of civilization and the center of Orthodoxy. Modern Istanbul can well be called the center of civilization, but the status of the capital of world Christianity has long since passed into history. Today there are active Orthodox churches in big city Turkey can be counted on one hand, but there are only three Russian churches.

The Karakoy district is not just one of the central ones, it is also one of the most colorful areas of Istanbul. Close streets slowly rise up from the Golden Horn Bay, and restaurant life is bustling on the shore. For almost a century now, for every Russian who finds himself in Istanbul for more than a couple of nights, the Karakoy district has become a second home. Here is the old port of Istanbul, and it was here that after the 1917 revolution ships of emigrants sailed in the tens of thousands. It was with Karakey that they began hard way V new life. But few took root in the former Constantinople. Only a few wanted to stay in Istanbul, which was then an unattractive city to live in.

All three Russian churches that exist in Istanbul today are located here. And this is not accidental, because almost the entire Russian-speaking population of the city was concentrated in Karakoy. From the seaport and the Galata Bridge to the Church of St. Panteleimon is about five minutes away. Here it’s easy to get stuck in the labyrinth of small, cramped alleys, among shops, pubs and hairdressers.

Entrance to the building on the sixth floor of which the Church of St. Panteleimon is located

We found our way to the temple, but only because we knew the address: just because you see a sign with the number of the house you are looking for, this does not mean that you are in front of the church gates. The Church of St. Panteleimon is located on the sixth and last floor of an ordinary old residential and very shabby building. Children look out of the windows and want us to photograph them. And in the lobby of the building sits a sullen Turk who categorically forbade filming.

If you don’t know the details, then it’s impossible to guess that the most famous Russian temple in Istanbul is located here. Formally, the building in which the church is located belongs to Russia; it was built for the Church back in the time of Catherine II. However, life here has been revived only in recent decades.

“With us, and I lived here for several years, until 2006, the church was being renovated. All this took a lot of effort. Then Father Cornelius served here, and he told us that he started with complete ruin. All the premises were torn apart and destroyed,” “little has been preserved from the temple,” Nina Shchetinina, who rented a room in the temple house, tells us.

Now everything here looks more or less decent. The church itself is on the top floor, its light green dome is visible from afar, but it is impossible to see it from the densely built-up street.

Father Timofey, rector of the Church of St. Panteleimon

We found the rector of the church, Father Timofey, immediately after the service. This man, who has been serving in the temple for more than ten years, is known and loved by almost the entire Russian community of Istanbul. He tries to remember our mutual friends who attended church many years ago.

“150-200 people come to the service, and on holidays many hundreds gather,” a church parishioner from Ukraine tells us. It’s hard to believe, because the entire interior of the church is like a large hall in an apartment. No more than 20-30 people can be here at a time. But it is around the Church of St. Panteleimon that the entire life of the Russian community in Istanbul is focused. Our interlocutor is from Ukraine, but people also come here from Russia, Moldova, and Belarus. “There are a lot of people who live permanently in Istanbul. For example, I’m married here,” she says.

After the collapse Soviet Union Istanbul again, like 70 years before, has become a very popular route among citizens from many countries former USSR. But only they had a big difference from their ancestors who visited the city at the beginning of the last century: they came to Istanbul and returned back. The shuttle business flourished for a decade and a half. Thanks to this, in Istanbul you can always find a person who can speak at least a few words in Russian. But here in Karakoy, there was a time when there were more Russian speakers than Turkic speakers in the noisy crowd. Restaurants and shops were opened for them; they were valued guests. With this huge trade flow, those who later had to stay here for a long time or even forever came to Istanbul. It was in the late 90s that the Church of St. Panteleimon began to fill with parishioners.

It is one of the recognizable symbols of the city and attracts thousands of tourists every year.

The cathedral has an interesting and long history: for one and a half thousand years it was a Christian temple and mosque, and currently it is a museum with unique exhibits and is an architectural monument.

Visit to Hagia Sophia in Istanbul

Address where the Cathedral is located: Hagia Sophia Square, Sultanahmet quarter, Fatih district, Istanbul, (Ayasofya Square, Sultanahmet Fatih/İSTANBUL). You can get to it by tram running along the Eminonu-Zeytinburnu route, as well as by any bus that goes from the Beyazit or Eminonu areas towards Sultanahmet.

Currently, the facility operates as a museum during winter (April 1–15) and summer (April 15–October 1) times.

In the first case opening hours– 09:00–17:00, in the second 09:00–19:00. Every Monday, as well as during the first days of Ramadan, the museum is closed on the day of Eid al-Fitr, Hagia Sophia is open from 13:00.

History of creation

The history of this church begins around 320-330 AD, during the reign of Emperor Constantine. Then it was christian temple, which was rebuilt several times over the next two centuries, although the remains of the very first complex are partially preserved today.

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Construction of the first temple

Founded at the beginning of the 4th century, the temple received the name Martyr Saint Sophia, and a little less than a century later (in 404 and 415) it was almost completely burned out in fires twice, but was restored each time. The Christian basilica erected on this site after the second fire also stood for about a century, and in 532 it was also destroyed by fire.

After this, at the behest of Emperor Justinian I, a grandiose construction project began. new cathedral. More than 10,000 workers took part in the work, and the materials used were marble, ivory, gold, silver and other most expensive materials that could be found in the empire.

The temple remained the Christian Cathedral of Hagia Sophia until the 14th century, when Constantinople was conquered by the Ottomans.

Construction of a mosque

On May 29, 1453, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II officially proclaimed the temple Hagia Sophia Mosque. In the same year, the construction of four minarets around the cathedral began; additional redevelopment was carried out: initially the altar of the cathedral was facing east, but now it was necessary to remove it and move the mihrab to the south-eastern corner of the temple.

I wonder what frescoes depicting Christian subjects were not destroyed by Muslims and even remained in the temple, although they were plastered over.

It is thanks to plaster that these frescoes have been well preserved to this day.

The emergence of the museum

The mosque performed its functions until 1935, then, due to the separation of religion and state in Turkey, the temple was abolished, giving its building to a museum. At the same time it was carried out interior restoration, including - the plaster was removed from the frescoes, and all decorative elements (both Muslim and those remaining from the times of the Byzantine Empire) were also restored.

Even though today Saint Sophia Cathedral is one of the main and most visited capitals of the country, bringing good money into the city treasury, with beginning of the XXI century, there has been an active performance of Istanbul public figures and even some politicians in favor of the museum being closed and the cathedral again became a temple.

Interior of Hagia Sophia - photo

The cathedral is considered the largest temple built in the last few thousand years (not counting several Greek temples, of which only ruins remain today). But Hagia Sophia attracts tourists not because of this scale, but unique design and rich decoration both outside and inside.

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Exterior design

Cathedral parameters can be described as follows:

• length- 100 meters;
• width– 69.5 meters;
• dome height– 55.6 meters from ground level;
• dome radius– 31 meters.

In addition to marble, which was the main building material, the builders of the cathedral also used special bricks made from clay and sand, brought from the island of Rhodes. Despite their lightness, these bricks are highly durable, so for seventeen centuries the church has not shrunk. From an architectural point of view, the cathedral is rectangular basilica classic type.

Under the main, above-ground part of the structure, there is underground part, which is mostly flooded with groundwater. Despite this, during the restoration it was possible to carry out a partial study of the underground premises. In some of them, jewelry and human remains were found, which presumably belonged to Muslim noble residents of Istanbul.

An underground passage was also discovered, which leads to the underground part of another local attraction - Topkapi Palace.

But there are still vast unexplored areas - work can only continue after pumping out the water.

Private sponsors back in 2010 agreed to finance the work of pumping out water, but despite the official consent of the authorities, this project has not yet been implemented.

Interior decoration

There is not a single wall in the interior of the cathedral that is not decorated glass mosaic, terracotta, silver or gold. Also here you can see many frescoes, some of which are only partially preserved, but most have survived thanks to the Ottoman plaster with which they were once covered.

On the right side of the entrance there is a section of the floor covered with multi-colored stone ornaments. This is where the ritual was once held coronation of the emperors of Rome. Inside the cathedral, along the perimeter of the lower gallery there are 104 columns, in the upper gallery there are 64 - these columns were made of marble and transported to Istanbul by sea.

Mihrabs(special elevations that perform the same functions in mosques as altars in churches) were installed here in the 16th century, but at the same time fit organically into big picture and look as ancient as the other elements. This also applies to the forty lamps that are located in special niches of the dome - they appeared here in the first half of the 16th century. Until that moment, the room was lit with ordinary candles.

Mosaics

Mosaics are the most valuable objects in the cathedral.

Valuable attractions of the temple

In one of the columns of the lower gallery there is niche, in which, according to legend, one of the priests who conducted the last Christian liturgy in 1453 hid from the Ottomans.

There is a hole in this niche, and according to legend, if you insert it into it thumb hands and, without removing it, rotate your palm 360 degrees, any desire will come true (obviously, this action is impossible).

In one of the apses (altar recess) there is a mihrab, which was placed here in the 16th century. It's right here minbar(tribune, pulpit in mosques), which appeared in Hagia Sophia at the same time.

Going out into the courtyard of the temple, you can see an exhibition of artifacts, elements of ancient decor and other items that were discovered by researchers during restoration and examination of the underground part of the cathedral.

Other temples of the Turkish capital

There are two more temples that are inferior to Hagia Sophia in terms of the luxury of the interior and the scale of construction, but tourists should visit these attractions, as they have no less cultural significance.

Orthodox Church of St. Irene

This church forms part of the architectural ensemble of Topkapi Palace. The Church of St. Irene was originally only small basilica, which was built in the 4th century a little earlier than the construction of St. Sophia Cathedral.

The Temple of Hagia Irene is notorious for the fact that in 346 there collided in a fight representatives of different religious denominations, as a result of which about 3,000 religious ministers and ordinary people were killed.

Currently the temple operates as museum, and from time to time exhibitions and concerts are held within its walls.

Church of St. George

The church is named after St. George the Victorious and was erected in 1601. At that time, the Fener district, where the church was built, was the only Orthodox district of Constantinople, which fell in 1453.

In 1614, the temple was partially reconstructed and expanded. In the first half of the eighteenth century strong fire significantly damaged the building, but under the patronage of Patriarch Jeremiah III, reconstruction work was carried out in 1720.

In 1738 there was a new fire, after which the church stood abandoned until 1797, until another restoration.

These restoration works were the last, and since then the architecture of the church has remained unchanged.

Watch exciting video about Hagia Sophia:

The Church of Christ in Chora is one of the few churches in Istanbul where one can imagine the former richness of the interior decoration of the Orthodox shrines of the bygone Constantinople.

Constantinople was constantly under threat of invasion, and the emperors moved their palace from the city center to Blachernae, to a safer location. A new palace was built here. The most important relics were kept in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Chora, which were brought here for safety from all the churches in the city.

In the first two decades of the 14th century, the imperial adviser Theodore Metochites allocated a large sum of money to repair the church. Then it acquired its current appearance, which has survived to this day practically unchanged. At the same time, an external narthex was attached to the temple from the west, and a pareklession gallery from the south. The official, poet and astronomer Metochites ordered the builders to cover the walls of the temple with wonderful mosaics.

The main building of the temple was built on the site of the old one, in 1077–1081, by order of Maria Ducana, mother-in-law of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. It is interesting that such a sophisticated building was created at the end of the Byzantine Empire, and not at the time of its heyday.

By visiting the Church of Christ the Savior in the Fields, you can see the origins of mosaic and icon painting, which, after the death of Byzantium, developed in Russia.

The 14th-century frescoes and mosaics found in the Church of Christ the Savior in the Fields are considered Byzantine standards of this art. These wall paintings and mosaics, mesmerizing tourists with their grace, appeared in the temple between 1315 and 1321, when it was reconstructed thanks to the patronage of the Byzantine poet Theodore Metochites.

Having visited this treasury of Byzantine art, you can imagine what splendor was inside the Christian shrine.

Ecumenical Phanar

Temple in the Patriarchate. Double-headed eagle on the Royal Doors - coat of arms of Byzantium

The Patriarchate is located in one of the most colorful areas of the city - Phanar or, in the Turkish way, Fener. "Phanar" means "lighthouse" in Greek, and there was once one in this place. The Greek intelligentsia, the Phanariots, traditionally settled here for several centuries. It was from the Phanariots that Greek-speaking officials were recruited to serve at the court of the Sultan.

The Orthodox clergy here, by the way, do not wear cassocks (except for the patriarch), but this is not a matter of fear of nationalists. This custom was introduced by Kemal Atatürk, Turkey's first president, who sought to make the country more secular and religiously tolerant. The Fez Ban law prohibited representatives of any faith from wearing religious clothing outside the temple.

It's difficult in Istanbul now appearance get to know not only the priest, but also Christian Church: There are either no crosses at all, or they are not visible from the street. However, taxi drivers perfectly understand the word “Patriarchy” - the only thing they know from Christian realities - and they bring him straight to him. Or you can walk along the wonderful Golden Horn Bay, which divides Istanbul into two parts: Galata and the Old City.

In the right and left parts of the temple, along the southern and northern walls there are reliquaries with the relics of saints: on the right are the remains of holy wives, and on the left are husbands

The Patriarchate is several buildings of the 18th-19th centuries behind a high fence and without a sign. IN daylight hours It's always open here throughout the day. Quiet inside! White marble purity, sun and not a soul... To the right is the residence of the Ecumenical Patriarch, and if you need communication with anyone, then this is there. There is both a duty officer and a secretary. And if to church, then from the gates of the Patriarchate - forward. The Church of the Great Martyr George was built at the beginning of the 18th century. The inside is very beautiful: dark wood stasidia with griffin heads on the armrests, a gilded carved iconostasis. On the curtain of the Royal Doors is the coat of arms of Constantinople and the Ecumenical Patriarch: a double-headed eagle. And also not a soul... Only occasionally you can find one or two tourists or pilgrims here. The latter come here mainly from Greece, but there are also Russians. They know: precious things are kept here Christian shrines. For example, to the right of the iconostasis there is a column; according to legend, the Lord was chained to it during the torture before the cross. The remainder of the ring to which the Savior was chained still sticks out from the column. It is believed that this shrine was brought from Jerusalem in 326 by St. Queen Elena. In the right and left parts of the temple, along the southern and northern walls there are reliquaries with the relics of saints: on the right are the remains of holy wives, and on the left are the remains of husbands. On the right you can venerate the relics of St. Euphemia of All Praise, Solomonia and Feofania.

Icon of the Holy Martyr Euphemia
At the beginning of the 3rd century, the proconsul of the city of Chalcedon - this is across the Bosporus Strait, now in this place the Kadikoy district of Istanbul - tried to force the Christians of the local community to make sacrifices to the pagan god. He especially wanted to persuade Euphemia, the young beauty, to do this. But Saint Euphemia said that “he would sooner be able to turn over the mountains on earth and move the stars in the sky than to tear her heart away from the true God.” Then the proconsul replaced persuasion with torture, but the faith of St. Euphemia couldn't. She sang prayers, calling on the Savior for help, and no matter how much torture she was subjected to, the Lord showed a miracle - St. Euphemia remained unharmed. Seeing all this, many believed in Christ. St. died Euphemia only after she herself asked the Lord about it. Then, as the life tells, the bear, the only one of all the animals with which they tried to poison the saint, inflicted a small wound on her - and immediately she gave up her spirit to the Lord. In Chalcedon, a church was built in honor of the saint, where in 451 the famous IV Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon was held, at which the heresy of Monophysitism was condemned.

The Old Testament saint Solomonia was the mother of the seven Maccabean brothers who came out in 166 BC against the wicked Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes, who desecrated the Temple of Jerusalem and forced the Jews to make pagan sacrifices. Before the eyes of St. Solomonia tortured and killed her children one after another. She bravely watched their deaths, and then died herself.

Holy Queen Theophania lived in the 9th century (+893) and was the first wife of Emperor Leo VI the Wise (886-911). Due to slander, she and her husband, then still heir to the throne, were imprisoned for three years. Having received freedom, she spent her life in prayer and fasting.

Our Lady of Mongolia: a church that never closed

This amazing church appeared in Constantinople during the formidable era of the Mongol conquests. Wild nomadic people, which Europe of those years had no idea about, crushed half the world in a matter of years. The Mongols captured China, Persia, Rus', half of Europe. Detachments of nomads wintered near Paris! Byzantine emperors, consummate masters in the matter of managing territories, they immediately realized that there was no point in fighting the Mongols. They were too strong, and Byzantium at that time was very weakened. The decision was made immediately. Dynastic marriage! And already in the middle of the 13th century from Constantinople to Sarai-Batu (the capital of the Horde, public education nomads) is leaving a gigantic embassy. Several thousand horsemen, foot porters, courtiers... All of them accompanied the illegitimate, but recognized by her father, daughter of Emperor Michael the Eighth Palaiologos. The girl's name was Maria, and she was destined to become a wife Mongol Khan Hulagu... But he, having conquered Baghdad, fell ill and died of fever. Undeterred, the Mongolian nobility gave the girl in marriage to the khan’s son, Abagh. Several interesting descriptions Mary's stay in the camp of nomads. The girl, accustomed to the sea and the city, was at first very homesick, but then found herself in faith. Queen Maria - the second wife of the khan (they practiced polygamy) - protected Christians at court and built several Orthodox churches in Sarai. True, like all buildings of that time among the Mongols, they were made of wood and have not survived to this day. After Mary's husband died, she was sent home with honors to Constantinople. Here Mary decided to devote her life to religion without reserve and took monastic vows. Under the new name of nun Melania, the Mongol queen lived in the city on the Bosphorus for several more years and died, having managed to found a church in the year of her death (1282). This is the temple of Mary of Mongol. The temple, perfectly preserved to this day, was opened after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. They say that the decree that it is forbidden to open a mosque here was signed by Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror himself. And the paper with his signature was kept in the temple in the most honorable place. Therefore, the Istanbul Church of St. Mary of Mongol is the only Orthodox church a city that has not been closed for a single day. By the way, the temple has another name - Bloody. And it is named so not because of the blood, as many people think, but because of the red color of the bricks that were selected for construction. Among the highlights of the church are its unique mosaics, which depict gospel scenes. The largest and most beautiful is a mosaic portrait of the Virgin Mary.

The blind gates are closed. There is complete silence on the street. But knock harder and a guard will come out accompanied by a mongrel: “Come in, come in.” That's all she can say in English. And she will express the categorical and incomprehensible ban on photography in eloquent gestures: they say, you can’t go inside, go to the yard! There is reverent darkness in the temple (the windows are shuttered) and silence. I don't want to leave.

Blachernae source: where the miracle of the Intercession happened

All that remains of the famous Blachernae Temple. Once upon a time, the robe, cover and part of the belt of the Blessed Virgin Mary were kept here

Under Constantinople, apparently, there are giant aquifers. Throughout the city you can see active or abandoned springs - sometimes unnamed, sometimes with inscriptions in Turkish or Greek, like the source of St. Kharlampy on the embankment near Phanar. Many of these sources were revered by the inhabitants of Constantinople as miraculous. One of the most famous is in the Blachernae Temple (so named after belonging to the area - Blachernae), more precisely, in the surviving small part of it. The temple was built over a spring in the 5th century and is famous for the fact that the robe, head cover and part of the belt of the Blessed Virgin Mary were once kept here.

The temple was built by Emperor Leo the Great specifically to store these shrines. In 860, the robe of the Mother of God saved Constantinople from the attack of Slavic ships that appeared in the Bosporus under the leadership of Prince Askold. In honor of this event, the holiday of the Placing of the Robe was established - July 2.

Here, in the Blachernae Church, in 910 the miracle of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary took place. Then Constantinople was besieged by Muslim Saracens. October 1 during all-night vigil the holy fool Andrew and his disciple Epiphanius saw walking through the air Holy Mother of God with angels and a host of saints. Holy Virgin prayed for Christians, and then spread Her Veil over all those praying in the temple. Soon the Saracen troops retreated.

Life-Giving Spring

Bubbles with water from the Life-Giving Spring in the temple are always in large quantities

Not far from Constantinople, a healing spring has been revered since ancient times. The Byzantine historian of the 14th century Nikephoros Callistus retells the legend about the warrior Leo, the future emperor Leo Marcellus (5th century), to whom the Mother of God herself pointed to the miraculous source and ordered to build a temple on this place. The temple was built and was highly revered due to the numerous miracles that took place in it. The corresponding iconography is also associated with the Life-Giving Source: the Virgin Mary with the Child in her arms in a font from which streams of water pour out. Every year on Bright Friday a visit was made to the Church of the Life-Giving Spring. procession. In Russia, according to researchers, the holiday of the icon Mother of God The “Life-Giving Source” came around the 16th century.

The Temple of the Life-Giving Spring is located in the Balykli Monastery, which means “red fish” in Turkish. There is a folk legend that the fish that were once found in the font of the Life-Giving Spring were unusually red. The monastery is quite far from the Patriarchate, outside the ancient city walls built by Emperor Theodosius II in the 5th century. The monastery buildings that now stand above the source were built late - in the 18th-20th centuries, and people are rarely allowed into the source itself: on Bright Week and others special days. But bubbles of water from the Life-Giving Spring stand at large quantities in the vestibule of the temple. From here, from the vestibule of the temple, you can get into a small courtyard, which in the last two centuries has become the resting place of the Patriarchs of Constantinople.
Among the places memorable to Christians in Istanbul there is also the Studite Monastery, the abbot of which was St. Theodore the Studite, and the Church of John the Baptist in Trulla, where the Fifth-Sixth or Trullo Council took place in 691-92, and the Church of St. mts. Irina, where three hundred years earlier the First Ecumenical Council took place.

Compound of the St. Panteleimon Monastery on Mount Athos.

In the church there is a copy of the miraculous icon of the Vladimir Mother of God. The temple is located on the sixth floor of an ancient monumental building, built in 1873 specifically for the courtyard of the Athos Panteleimon Monastery. The metochion was created with the aim of helping Russian pilgrims traveling through Istanbul to holy places - Jerusalem and Holy Mount Athos.
The rite of consecration of the church on February 2, 1879 was performed by Greek Patriarch Joachim III. Interior decoration The churches are striking in the brightness of their colors. The fact is that several years ago the temple underwent restoration, and all the frescoes on the walls and ceiling were painted anew with a donation from one of the parishioners.
There is a terrace around the house. Here after the service parishioners hold tea parties.
The temple contains unique icons - the miraculous image of the holy martyr Panteleimon, painted in 1898 in the Panteleimon Monastery on Mount Athos specifically for this temple, and miraculous icon Mother of God of Vladimir. The latter appeared here shortly after the construction of the church. According to legend, it was given to the temple by a nun from Russia, a nun of Voznesensky convent Mitrophania. In 1879, going to venerate the Holy Sepulcher, she stopped at the Panteleimon Metochion. The icon, which she never parted with - such was her parental blessing - she allowed to be temporarily placed in the local church. Since there were still few images in the newly founded temple, the monks persuaded Mitrophania to leave his icon at least for the duration of the trip. Nine years later, the nun returned and took her icon. However, soon after returning home, she became seriously ill: her face began to literally “rot alive.” Doctors could not find a way to cure her and promised her a quick death. On the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God, Mitrofania covered her face and went to the Assumption Cathedral, where she cried bitterly and asked for help from the Mother of God. Suddenly an unfamiliar woman approached her and asked: “Did you take the icon from Constantinople?” and ordered the image to be returned to the temple of the Panteleimon Metochion. The woman immediately walked away and disappeared. No matter how much the nun looked for her, she could not find her. But I remembered the words of the stranger: “Put the icon back in its place, and you will get better.” As soon as Mitrophania prepared the icon for sending to Constantinople, her illness stopped. Having lived long life, Mother Mitrofania was never sick again. And the icon is still kept in Istanbul...

Church of Desire.

There is one ancient Greek church in Istanbul. Locals call it the church of one day (since it is open only on the first day of each new month) or the church of wish fulfillment. It is located in the Unkapani area and is called Ay Bir Kilisesi or Meryem Ana Ayazmasi or Vefa Kilisesi. Not only Christians come here to pray - Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants... In the inner church there is a huge number of ancient, incredibly “strong” icons dating back to the 9th-11th centuries. At the entrance, everyone purchases special keys. When “closing” the icon frames, you need to make a wish. They say that there are no such desires that would not be fulfilled. Among the places memorable for Christians in Istanbul there is also the Studite Monastery, the abbot of which was the Venerable Monastery. Theodore the Studite, and the Church of John the Baptist in Trulla, where the Fifth-Sixth or Trullo Council took place in 691-92, and the Church of St. Irina, where three hundred years earlier the First Ecumenical Council took place. You can get acquainted with all these and other temples in more detail on a tour of the Holy Places of Istanbul. excursions