Water has always been a problem in Istanbul.
So the information card in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul associated with the ruins of the sewers and cisterns of Istanbul says.
Which means the temporary shut off yesterday was nothing unusual. The water came back on at 1:00 a.m., rather than 1:00 p.m. as we had been told, and we thanked God for small favors.
During the Roman Empire, Istanbul was part of Eastern Thrace and originally got its water supply from the mountains of present-day Bulgaria. Elaborate fountains featured in the city's spaces and baths were frequently taken. When the source dried up, new methods had to be invented to supply the town. The ruins of the ancient water system are open to tours with the Basilica Cistern, built during the reign of the Roman Emperor Justinian, being among the most popular.
***
Originally, Byzantium was limited to the European side of modern-day Istanbul. The other side was Chalcedon, now the Istanbul neighborhood called Kadikoy. Readers of the Christian Bible will remember references to the Chalcedonians of Asia Minor. In 451 the Church council there accepted that Christ had two natures, divine and human, a position that united the Roman and Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as Protestants. (The Coptic Church of Egypt and Ethiopia and the 'Jacobite' churches of Syria and Armenia believe he had only one nature, the divine one.)R
Troy --where the Greeks fought the Trojans-- is in Asia Minor, or northern Anatolia province in modern Turkey. That is, on the other side of the Bosporous from Thrace.
Eastern Thrace along the inlet into the Sea of Marmara known as The Golden Horn is where Greek Orthodox Istanbul now resides. Of course, before the Ottoman Conquest in 1453 Constantinople was ruled by Byzantine emperors who subscribed to the Greek Orthodox faith. As the Ottomans extirpated the Byzantines, the church was pushed back further West, where it retains its seat today. It is there --to the Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols; and the Chora Museum --once the Church of the Holy Saviour, then a mosque, in the Fatih district in the far west of the city-- to which Max and I are going today.
***
Our taxi drops us somewhere along the Golden Horn, at the bottom of a hill in the neighborhood called Fener, where most of Istanbul's remaining 5,000 or so Greeks live. From the bottom of the hill we can see the tops of the Phanar Roman Orthodox Lyceum, the most prestigious Greek school in Istanbul. Fener is Turkish for Phanar,, the Greeks being known as Phanariots.
Phanariots are not simply Greeks, however. The terms specifically refers to those Greek families that came to traditionally occupy four positions of major importance in the Ottoman Empire: Grand Dragoman, Grand Dragoman of the Fleet, Hospodar of Moldavia, and Hospodar of Wallachia.
Around the corner from the school, which is an imposing red-brick structure built in the 19th century, is the Byzantine Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols, known to the Turks as the Church of the Blood. The "Mary" referred to in the church's name is not Christ's mother, but Maria Palaeologina, illegitimate daughter of Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII. To buy peace with Genghis Khan's Mongol armies, her father betrothed Maria to Abaqa Khan, the Mongol ruler of the Persian Ilkhanate. At Khan's death fifteen years later, Maria was again used to buy peace: her father betrothed her to another Mongolian prince in order to create an alliance against the Ottomans threatening Byzantine Nicaea.
Fortunately for Maria, the Ottomans captured Nicaea and Maria was released of her obligation She returned to Istanbul, rebuilding the convent and monastery on the present-day site of the church. Although originally dedicated to Mary, the mother of Christ, the church remains associated with Mary of the Mongols.
The association with blood in Turkish minds is associated with the death of a Turkish standard bearer during the last hours of the siege of Constantinople in 1453. The church has never been used as a mosque, escaping all attempts to convert the property from Christian to Muslim ownership. Built in the 13th century, it is, in fact, the only Byzantine church in Istanbul to have remained Christian to the present day. (The Church of Saint George, home of the Patriarchate, was built after 1453, when the Ottoman victory ends definitively the Byzantine period in in Istanbul.)
The Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols is rarely open, and it is not open when we pass by. However, there is a buzzer to press and I do: a few minutes later an older man opens the door and looks at us. I show him the Christian medal around my neck and he invites us to come into the church courtyard.
He opens the tiny church to us and turns on the lights: we are bathed in glory, icons everywhere. The ikonostasis is carved of dark wood and lacquered, with images of Saint Michael, Saints Cyril and Methodious, Saint Anthony and other Orthodox saints. The vault above the ikonostasis reveals a Levantine Mary, mother of Christ, an enormous image of her head and shoulders draped in maroon robes.
There is something very moving about being in a space that has striven (and succeeded) in remaining itself despite the violence of history's push. Which continues: the nearby Church of Saint George, home of the patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox Church, and therefore a place of pilgrimage for Orthodox Christians, was bombed by Muslim extremists in 1997. Rumeli is the Turkish word for "Europe", and indeed, the little church remains one of the last artifacts of when Istanbul was Christian and European. A few feet beyond, by the Golden Horn, there is a cafe run by a man who remembers when there were many Greeks still living in the neighborhood. He is an atheist and has a son who is in law school in Florida, married to an American. He has lived in Fener all his life:
There used to be a lot of Greeks here, but not so many anymore. I have two Greek girls who work for me here --they'll be here later. This is still a place you can live.
We mention that up the hill, on our way to the Chora Church (now a major tourist attraction)-- we walked through Carsamba (pronounced Charshamba) --and were struck by the ubiquitousness of women in burkas:
It's Afghanistan over there, Turks from Anatolia, Syrians, Afghanis. The Islamic foundations funded by Saudi money pay for all their needs, and they vote for Erdogyan.
When I ask him what will happen in Turkey, he tells me that Eastern Turkey will become a separate Kurdish state to fulfill the desires of the Americans and the British, but that the rest of Turkey will remain a secular republic, as Turks don't like the Saudis --or Arabs in general, and have come to resent Erdogan's courtship of Gulf states:
The building you see all over Istanbul --that's Saudi and Quatari money. In return for votes paid for by Islamic foundations backed by Saudi and Qatari money and tied to Saudi and Qatari real estate developers, Erdogyan gets the votes he needs from Caramba and the east of Turkey.
Early tomorrow Max and I leave Istanbul. Once again, I have to say that the best metaphor for the city is that of a mirrored passage. Seductive, ancient, modern, spiritual, corrupt, with corners of surprising urbanity, alongside squalor.
Last night, on our way home from Taksim Square, I encountered an Ecuadorean woman and her brother selling handicrafts from that country. They were forced by circumstances to come thousands of miles to sell cheap products for a few lira in the equivalent of Times Square.
The cafe owner and the Ecuadorean vendor --what better proofs of Istanbul's history as a trading city? What better proof of globalization's reach --with all its unpredictable consequences.
No comments:
Post a Comment