APPROACHING ORTHODOX SACRED SPACE IN OTTOMAN ISTANBUL: THE WANDERINGS OF PROTESTANT HUMANISTS THROUGH THE BYZANTINE MONUMENTS OF CONSTANTINOPLE
APPROACHING ORTHODOX SACRED SPACE IN OTTOMAN ISTANBUL: THE WANDERINGS OF PROTESTANT HUMANISTS THROUGH THE BYZANTINE MONUMENTS OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Summary/Abstract: This paper deals with the reception of the Byzantine churches of Constantinople by Protestant scholars who visited the building complex of the Pammakaristos, then the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, as well as other churches within the Patriarchate’s jurisdiction in the Ottoman capital. In their travel accounts, these scholars reported on the architecture, the mural decoration, the icons, liturgical structures, and relics they saw, as well as on the liturgy and other offices celebrated in monuments dating from the Byzantine period and still in the hands of Christians (Orthodox and Armenian). They also witnessed the Hagia Sophia and other historic Byzantine churches that had been converted into Islamic shrines. Their remarks on the ways Christians and Muslims used the Byzantine monuments and approached Byzantine art and architecture reveal their knowledge of as well as their position toward Orthodox Christianity and its Byzantine background.

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