The most important event in the history of the monastery occurred after the city had fallen into Turkish hands. The church then became the cathedral of the patriarchs of Constantinople. It is true that, in the first instance, the conqueror had given the church of the Holy Apostles to the Patriarch Gennadius as a substitute for the church of S. Sophia. But the native population did not affect the central quarters of the city, preferring to reside near the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmora. Furthermore, the body of a murdered Turk was discovered one morning in the court of the Holy Apostles, and excited among his countrymen the suspicion that the murder had been committed by a Christian hand. [235] The few Greeks settled in the neighbourhood were therefore in danger of retaliation, and Gennadius begged permission to withdraw to the Pammakaristos, around which a large colony of Greeks, who came from other cities to repeople the capital, had settled. [236] The objection that nuns occupied the monastery at that moment was easily overcome by removing the sisterhood to the small monastery attached to the church of S. John in Trullo (Achmed Pasha Mesjedi) in the immediate vicinity, [237] and for 138 years thereafter the throne of seventeen patriarchs of Constantinople stood in the church of the Pammakaristos, with the adjoining monastery as their official residence. [238]
As the chief sanctuary of the Greek community, the building was maintained, it would appear, in good order and displayed considerable beauty. 'Even at night,' to quote extravagant praise, 'when no lamp was burning, it shone like the sun.' But even sober European visitors in the sixteenth century agree in describing the interior of the church as resplendent with eikons and imperial portraits. It was also rich in relics, some of them brought by Gennadius from the church of the Holy Apostles and from other sanctuaries lost to the Greeks. Among the interesting objects shown to visitors was a small rude sarcophagus inscribed with the imperial eagle and the name of the Emperor Alexius Comnenus. [239] It was so plain and rough that Schweigger speaks of it as too mean to contain the dust of a German peasant. [240] But that any sarcophagus professing to hold the remains of Alexius Comnenus should be found at the Pammakaristos is certainly surprising. That emperor was buried, according to the historian Nicetas Choniates, in the church of S. Saviour the Philanthropist, [241] near the palace of Mangana, on the east shore of the city. Nor could the body of a Byzantine autocrator have been laid originally in a sarcophagus such as Breüning and Schweigger describe. These difficulties in the way of regarding the monument as genuine are met by the suggestion made by Mr. Siderides, that when the church of Christ the Philanthropist was appropriated by the Turks in connection with the building of the Seraglio, some patriotic hand removed the remains of Alexius Comnenus from the splendid coffin in which they were first entombed, and, placing them in what proved a convenient receptacle, carried them for safe keeping to the Pammakaristos. The statement that Anna Comnena, the celebrated daughter of Alexius Comnenus, was also buried in this church rests upon the misunderstanding of a passage in the work of M. Crusius, where, speaking of that princess, the author says: 'Quae (Anna) anno Domini 1117 vixit; filia Alexii Comneni Imp. cujus sepulchrum adhuc exstat in templo patriarchatus Constantinopli a D. Steph. Gerlachio visum.'[242]
But cujus (whose) refers, not to Anna, but to Alexius. This rendering is put beyond dispute by the statement made by Gerlach in a letter to Crusius, that he found, in the Pammakaristos, 'sepulchrum Alexii Comneni αὐτοκράτορος,' the tomb of the Emperor Alexius Comnenus. [243]
The church was converted into a mosque under Murad III. (1574-1592), and bears the style Fetiyeh, 'of the conqueror,' in honour of the conquest of Georgia and Azerbaijan during his reign. According to Gerlach, the change had been feared for some time, if for no other reason, because of the fine position occupied by the church. But quarrels between different factions of the Greek clergy and between them and Government officials had also something to do with the confiscation of the building. [244] When the cross, which glittered above the dome and gleamed far and wide, indicating the seat of the chief prelate of the Orthodox Communion, was taken down, 'a great sorrow befell the Christians.' [245] The humble church of S. Demetrius Kanabou, in the district of Balat, then became the patriarchal seat until 1614, when that honour was conferred upon the church which still retains it, the church of S. George in the quarter of Phanar.
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S. Mary
Pammakaristos. East End of the Parecclesion. |
S. Mary
Pammakaristos. The west Column in the Parecclesion. |
To face page 148.
Architectural Features
Owing to the numerous additions and alterations introduced into the original fabric, both before and since the Turkish conquest, the original plan of the building is not immediately apparent. Nor does the interior, with its heavy piers, raised floor, and naked walls correspond to the accounts given of its former splendour and beauty. A careful study will, however, unravel the tangled scheme which the actual condition of the church presents, and detect some traces of the beauty which has faded and passed away. The building might be mistaken for a domed church with four aisles, two narthexes, and a parecclesion. But notwithstanding all the disguises due to the changes it has undergone, the original church was unquestionably an 'ambulatory' church. It had, moreover, at one time a third narthex, of which now only the foundations remain on the west side of the church. The present outer narthex is in five bays, covered by dome vaults on transverse arches, and is paved with hexagonal tiles. The centre bay is marked by transverse arches of greater breadth and projects slightly on the outside, forming a plain central feature. At the north end a door led to the third narthex, but has now been built up; at the south end is a door inserted in Turkish times. To the south of the central bay the exterior is treated with plain arcades in two orders of brick; to the north these are absent, probably on account of some alterations. At the south end the narthex returns round the church in two bays, leading to the parecclesion.
The inner narthex is in four bays covered with cross-groined vaults without transverse arches, and is at present separated from the body of the church by three clumsy hexagonal piers, on to which, as may be seen in the photograph (Plate [XXXVII.]), the groins descend in a very irregular manner.