THE CHURCH OF SS. PETER AND MARK, HOJA ATIK MUSTAPHA JAMISSI
The Byzantine church, now Hoja Atik Mustapha Jamissi, situated in the Aivan Serai quarter, close to the Golden Horn, is commonly regarded as the church of SS. Peter and Mark, because it stands where the church dedicated to the chief of the apostles and his companion stood, in the district of Blachernae (Aivan Serai) and near the Golden Horn. [305] Such indications are too vague for a positive opinion on the subject, but perhaps the Patriarch Constantius, who is responsible for the identification, may have relied upon some tradition in favour of the view he has made current. [306]
Note
Tafferner, chaplain to the embassy from Leopold I. of Austria to the Ottoman Court, speaking of the patriarchal church in his day (the present patriarchal church of S. George in the Phanar quarter), says, 'Aedes haec in patriarchatum erecta est, postquam Sultan Mehemet basilicam Petri et Pauli exceptam Graecis in moscheam defoedavit' (Caesarea legatio, p. 89, Vien. 1668). Probably by the church of SS. Peter and Paul he means this church of SS. Peter and Mark. If so, the traditional name of the building is carried back to the seventeenth century. The church of SS. Peter and Mark, it is true, never served as a patriarchal church. That honour belonged to the church of S. 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 worship.
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 worshippers. 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 worship 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.
SS. Peter and Mark, from the south-east.
