Byzantine Churches in Constantinople Part 22

Demetrius of Kanabos, which is in the immediate vicinity, and has always remained a Christian sanctuary. Tafferner seems to have confused the two churches owing to their proximity to each other. Or his language may mean that the patriarchal seat was removed from S.

Demetrius when SS. Peter and Paul was converted into a mosque, because too near a building which had become a Moslem place of wors.h.i.+p.

The church of SS. Peter and Mark was founded, it is said, by two patricians of Constantinople, named Galbius and Candidus, in 458, early in the reign of Leo I. (457-474). But the present building cannot be so old. It is a fair question to ask whether it may not be the church of S.

Anastasia referred to in a chrysoboullon of John Palaeologus (1342), and mentioned by the Russian pilgrim who visited Constantinople in the fifteenth century (1424-53).[307]

The church of SS. Peter and Mark was erected as a shrine for the supposed tunic of the Theotokos, a relic which played an important part in the fortunes of Constantinople on several occasions, as 'the palladium of the city and the chaser away of all diseases and warlike foes.' As often happened in the acquisition of relics, the garment had been secured by a pious fraud--a fact which only enhanced the merit of the purloiners, and gave to the achievement the colour of a romantic adventure. In the course of their pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Galbius and Candidus discovered, in the house of a devout Hebrew lady who entertained them, a small room fitted up like a chapel, fragrant with incense, illuminated with lamps, and crowded with wors.h.i.+ppers. Being informed that the room was consecrated by the presence of a chest containing the robe of the mother of their Lord, the pious men begged leave to spend the night in prayer beside the relic, and while thus engaged were seized by an uncontrollable longing to gain possession of the sacred garment. Accordingly they took careful measurements of the chest before them, and at Jerusalem ordered an exact facsimile of it to be made. Thus equipped they lodged again, on their homeward journey, at the house of their Galilean hostess, and once more obtained leave to wors.h.i.+p in its chapel. Watching their opportunity they exchanged the chests, and forthwith despatched the chest containing the coveted treasure straight to Constantinople. They themselves tarried behind, as though loth to quit a spot still hallowed by the sacred robe. Upon their return to the capital the pious thieves erected a shrine for their prize on land which they owned in the district of Blachernae, and dedicated the building to SS. Peter and Mark instead of to the Theotokos, as would have been more appropriate, in the hope that they would thus conceal the precious relic from the public eye, and retain it for their special benefit. But the secret leaked out. Whereupon the emperor obliged the two patricians to surrender their treasure, and, after renovating the neighbouring church of the Theotokos of Blachernae, deposited the relic in that sanctuary as its proper home.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE LI.

(1) SS. PETER AND MARK, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.

(2) SS. PETER AND MARK. FONT OUTSIDE THE CHURCH.

_To face page 192._]

The site of that celebrated church lies at a short distance to the west of Hoja Atik Mustapha Jamissi, and is marked by the Holy Well which was attached to it. The well, in whose waters emperors and empresses were wont to bathe, is now enclosed by a modern Greek chapel, and is still the resort of the faithful.

_Architectural Features_

The plan of the church presents the simplest form of the domed-cross type without galleries. The dome, without drum, ribs, or windows, is almost certainly a Turkish reconstruction, but the dome arches and piers are original. The arms of the cross and the small chambers at its angles are covered with barrel vaults, and communicate with one another through lofty, narrow arches. In the treatment of the northern and southern walls of the building considerable architectural elaboration was displayed. At the floor level is a triple arcade; higher up are three windows resting on the string-course; and still higher a window divided into three lights. The arches in the church are enormously stilted, a feature due to the fact that the only string-course in the building, though structurally corresponding to the vaulting spring, has been placed at the height of what would properly be the column string-course.

The three apses, much altered by repairs, project boldly, all of them showing three sides on the exterior. The roof and the cornice are Turkish, and the modern wooden narthex has probably replaced a Byzantine narthex. On the opposite side of the street lies a cruciform font that belonged to the baptistery of the church.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 63.]

From a church of this type to the later four-columned plan is but a step. The dome piers of SS. Peter and Mark are still [Symbol: L]-shaped, and form the internal angles of the cross. As the arches between such piers and the external walls increased in size, the piers became smaller, until eventually they were reduced to the typical four columns of the late churches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE LII.

(1) SS. PETER AND MARK. INTERIOR OF THE DOME, LOOKING NORTH.

(2) SS. PETER AND MARK. LOOKING ACROSS THE DOME FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.

_To face page 194._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 64 AND 65.]

[305] Synax., July 2.

[306] _Ancient and Modern Constantinople_, p. 83.

[307] [Greek: Neologou hebdomadiaia epitheoresis], January 3, 1893, p.

205; _Itin. russes_, p. 233.

CHAPTER XI

THE CHURCH OF THE MYRELAION, BODROUM JAMISSI

The identification of Bodroum Jamissi as the church attached to the monastery styled the Myrelaion rests upon the tradition current in the Greek community when Gyllius visited the city. According to that traveller, the church on the hill rising to the north of the eastern end of the gardens of Vlanga, the site of the ancient harbour of Theodosius, was known as the Myrelaion--'Supra loc.u.m hortorum Blanchae nuncupatorum, olim Portum Theodosianum continentium, extremam partem ad ortum solis pertinentem, clivus a Septentrione eminet, in quo est templum vulgo nominatum Myreleos.'[308] This agrees, so far, with the statement of the Anonymus[309] of the eleventh century, that the Myrelaion stood on the side of the city looking towards the Sea of Marmora. There is no record of the date when the monastery was founded. But the House must have been in existence before the eighth century, for Constantine Cop.r.o.nymus (740-775), the bitter iconoclast, displayed his contempt for monks and all their ways by scattering the fraternity, and changing the fragrant name of the establishment, Myrelaion, the place of myrrh-oil, into the offensive designation, Psarelaion, the place of fish-oil.[310] The monastery was restored by the Emperor Roma.n.u.s I. Lecapenus (919-945), who devoted his residence in this district to that object.[311] Hence the monastery was sometimes described as 'in the palace of the Myrelaion,'[312] [Greek: en tois palatiois tou Myrelaiou], and as 'the monastery of the Emperor Roma.n.u.s,'[313] [Greek: Mone tou basileos Rhomanou]. It was strictly speaking a convent, and became noteworthy for the distinguished rank of some of its inmates, and as the mausoleum in which the founder and many members of his family were laid to rest. Here Roma.n.u.s II. sent his sister Agatha to take the veil, when he was obliged to dismiss her from the court to soothe the jealousy of his beautiful but wicked consort Theophano.[314] Upon the abdication of Isaac Comnenus, his wife Aecatherina and her daughter Maria retired to the Myrelaion, and there learned that a crown may be a badge of slavery and the loss of it liberty.[315] Here were buried Theodora,[316] the wife of Roma.n.u.s Lecapenus, in 923, and, eight years later, his beloved son Christopher,[317] for whom he mourned, says the historian of the event, with a sorrow 'greater than the grievous mourning of the Egyptians.'

Here also Helena, the daughter of Roma.n.u.s Lecapenus, and wife of Constantine VII. Porphyrogenitus, was laid to rest, in 981, after an imposing funeral, in which the body was carried to the grave on a bier of gold adorned with pearls and other precious stones.[318] To this monastery were transferred, from the monastery of S. Mamas, near the Gate of the Xylokerkou, the three sarcophagi, one of them a fine piece of work, containing the ashes of the Emperor Maurice and his children.

And here also Roma.n.u.s Lecapenus himself was interred in 948, his remains being brought from the island of Prote, where his unfilial sons, Stephen and Constantine, had obliged him to spend the last years of his life as a monk.[319]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE LIII.

MYRELAION. THE SOUTH SIDE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MYRELAION. THE NARTHEX, LOOKING NORTH.

_To face page 196._]

_Architectural Features_

The building is on the 'four column' plan. The dome, placed on a circular drum, is supported on four piers, and divided into eight concave compartments, with windows in the alternate compartments. The arms of the cross, the chambers at the angles, and the bema are all covered with cross-groined vaults that spring, like those in the chapel of the Pammakaristos (p. 151), from the vaulting level. The apsidal chambers have dome vaults, a niche on the east recessed in an arch to form the apse, and a niche both on the north and the south rising above the vaulting string-course. In the lowest division of the south wall stood originally a triple arcade with a door between the columns. The arcade has been built up, but the moulded jambs and cornices of the door, and the arch above it, now contracted into a window, still show on the exterior, while the columns appear within the church. Above the column string-course is a range of three windows, the central window being larger than its companions; higher up in the gable is a single light. The interior of the church has been much pulled about and cut away. The narthex is in three bays, separated by strong transverse arches, and terminates at either end in a high concave niche that shows on the outside. The central bay has a dome vault; the other bays have cross-groined vaults. The church had no gynecaeum, although Pulgher indicates one in his plan. A striking feature of the exterior are the large semicircular b.u.t.tresses that show beyond the walls of the church--six on the south side, one on either side of the entrance on the west, and two on the east, supporting the apsidal chambers. In the last case, however, where entire b.u.t.tresses would have been at once too large and too close together, the b.u.t.tresses are only half semi-circles. The apses project with three sides. The northern side of the church and the roof are modern, for the building suffered severely in 1784 from fire.[320] The church stands on a platform, built over a small cistern, the roof of which is supported by four columns crowned by beautiful capitals. Hence the Turkish name of the mosque, Bodroum, signifying a subterranean hollow. Gyllius[321] is mistaken in a.s.sociating this church with the large underground cistern situated lower down the slope of the hill close to the bath Kyzlar Agha.s.si Hamam.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE LIV.

MYRELAION. THE INTERIOR, LOOKING EAST.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MYRELAION. THE SOUTH-WEST CROSS ANGLE.

_To face page 198._]

Since the above was in print, the church has, unfortunately, been burnt in the great fire which destroyed a large part of Stamboul on the 23rd July 1912 (see Plates II., III.).

NOTE

Gyllius (_De top. C.P._ iii. c. 8) places the Horreum, the statue of Maimas, the house of Craterus, the Modius, and the arch bearing the two bronze hands, after pa.s.sing which a criminal on the way to punishment lost all hope of reprieve, near this church; basing that opinion on the statement of Suidas that these buildings stood near the Myrelaion. But there was a Myrelaion also (Codinus, _De aed._ p. 108) in the district in which the Shahzade mosque is situated. The buildings above mentioned were near this second Myrelaion. On the other hand, the Chrysocamaron near the Myrelaion mentioned by Codinus (_De signis_, pp. 65-66) stood near the church under our consideration, for it was close to the church of S. Acacius in the Heptascalon. So also, doubtless, did the xenodocheion Myrelaion (Du Cange, iv. p. 160), possibly one of the many philanthropic inst.i.tutions supported by Helena (Theoph. Cont. p. 458), the daughter of Roma.n.u.s Lecapenus and wife of Constantine VII. Porphyrogenitus.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 66 AND 67.]

[308] _De top. C.P._ iii. c. 8.

[309] Banduri, iii. p. 48.

[310] _Ibid. ut supra._

[311] Theoph. Cont. p. 402.

[312] Scylitzes, in Cedrenus, ii. p. 649.

[313] Theoph. Cont. p. 404.

[314] _Ibid._ pp. 461, 757.

[315] Scylitzes, _ut supra_, pp. 648-49.

[316] Theoph. Cont. p. 402.

[317] _Ibid._ p. 420.

[318] _Ibid._ p. 473.