Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [115]
Saint Mary of the Mongols
A visit to the Fener district of Istanbul is considered a bit off the beaten path, but it deserves to be better known, not least because of one particular church, Saint Mary of the Mongols. Of the two dozen Byzantine churches in Istanbul, Saint Mary’s is the only one that is still in use as a house of worship (it was never converted to a mosque), and the story behind it is one of the city’s more colorful. While most of the world was shaking in their shoes over the arrival of the Mongols, the Byzantines were less fearful (all the peoples the Mongols terrorized were their enemies) and they shrewdly smelled an opportunity for some kind of friendship. Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos decided to send his illegitimate daughter, Maria Despina, as a bride-princess to Hulagu Khan, the chief Mongol khan in Baghdad.
Maria began her journey eastward in 1265, reportedly in a church-shaped tent bedecked with images of saints, but when she finally arrived, the khan had died. So, Maria married his son, Abaqa Khan, instead. Abaqa was not Muslim, and Maria was successful at protecting Christians when the khan began to persecute his Muslim subjects. Abaqa was assassinated by his brother (who was Muslim) in 1282, and after fifteen years, Maria decided it was time to return to Constantinople (though not until after her half-brother, now Emperor Andronicus, offered her hand to another Mongol, Charbanda; he marched west to fetch Maria in Nicaea, where she was waiting, but the city fell to the Ottoman Dynasty before he arrived, and he turned around and went home). Upon her return, she rebuilt the nunnery that had been started in 1261 and enlarged in 1266, and she retired there until her death. The exterior is a dark red color, said to date from May 29, 1453, when the neighborhood streets were filled with Greeks desperately fighting the invading Ottomans—the Turkish name for it is Kanlı Kilise, or Church of the Blood. The name of the street that leads to the church is still called Ascent of the Standard-Bearer, in honor of a Muslim standard-bearer who was killed in the fighting.
The church is not freely open to the public—though my visit was spontaneous—so it is advised to ask your concierge or guide to arrange a visit. Once inside, you’ll see that it is most unusually shaped, due to the rebuilding. Of significance are the framed fermans (official decrees), of Mehmet II and Beyazit II that granted the ownership of the church to the Greek community in perpetuity: Mehmet reportedly endowed the church to the mother of Christodoulos, the Greek architect of the mosque of Fatih, in acknowledgment of his work. Beyazit extended the ferman in recognition of the services of the nephew of Christodoulos, who built the Beyazit Mosque.
In an article in Time Out Istanbul, Scott Newman observes that “the Church of Saint Mary continues as a functioning church, but with few Greeks left in the city, especially in Fener, it sits alone and little visited.” My visit to Saint Mary of the Mongols was one of my most memorable, and I encourage visitors to wend their way up the steep hill to see this historic site and interesting neighborhood, which is a UNESCO urban renewal project.
The Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts (located in the Ibrahim Paşa Sarayı) is little-visited but is very much worthwhile. It sits north of the Hippodrome and is one of the few surviving examples of Ottoman domestic architecture of the sixteenth century. I admit I might not have visited the museum if it weren’t on the suggestion of Ömer Eymen (see Arasta Bazaar in Miscellany for a description of Ömer, page 494). At the time, I was serious about learning more about Turkish kilims and rugs and Ömer, who owned a shop specializing in nomadic weavings (and had already spent the better part of a day teaching us about vegetable dyes, chemical dyes, and