For almost eight hundred years the Holy Apostles Church (Άγιοι Απόστολοι - Agioi Apostoloi) was the second-most important church in Constantinople, after the basilica of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia), and the burial site (Imperial Polyandreion) of the most famous Byzantine emperors. Until the 11th century, emperors, patriarchs and bishops were buried in this church and the relics of many of them were venerated by the faithful.
When Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453, the Holy Apostles briefly became the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church. In 1461 it was taken over by the Ottomans and demolished to make way for the Fatih Mosque.
 An image from the Vatican Codex of 1162 believed to be a representation of the Church of the Holy Apostles
History
The building of the original Holy Apostles started about the year 330, under the reign of Constantine the Great (306 - 337), the emperor who made Constantinople the capital of the Roman Empire. The Emperor died in Nicomedia in 337, before the completion of the church. When the building of the church was completed, the relic of Constantine the Great was transferred to the mausoleum of the Holy Apostles by Constantius II (337 - 361), his son and successor. The church was dedicated to the Twelve Apostles of Jesus and it was the Emperor's intention to gather relics of all the Apostles in the church. Constantius II brought to Constantinople the relics of St. Andrew from Achaia and those of St. Luke the Evangelist and St. Timothy from Ephesus. In later centuries it came to be assumed that the church was dedicated to these three only. According to Procopius and other later historians, the church was rebuilt by Justinian I (527 - 565). The new church was designed and built by the architects Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus in the form of a Greek cross with five domes: one above each arm of the cross and one above the central bay where the arms intersected. The western arm of the cross extended westward forming the atrium. The relics of Constantine and the three saints were re-installed in the new church, and a mausoleum for Justinian and his family was built at the end of the northern arm.
 Church plan from the VI century
The church was renovated and enlarged in the 9th century by the Emperor Basil I (867-886). The basilica was looted during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. When Michael VIII Palaeologus (1261 - 1282) recaptured the city from the Crusaders, he erected a statue of the Archangel Michael at the church to commemorate the event. The church was restored again by Andronicus II Palaeologus (1282 - 1238) in the early 14th century, but thereafter fell into disrepair as the Byzantine Empire declined and Constantinople's population fell. The Florentine Cristoforo Buondelmonti saw the dilapidated church in 1420. In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks. The Holy Wisdom was seized and turned into a mosque, and the Sultan Mehmed II ordered the Greek Patriarch Gennadius Scholarius to move to the Holy Apostles, which thus became the centre of the Greek Orthodox Church. But the area around the church was soon settled by Turks, and there was increasing hostility to such a large and centrally located building remaining in Christian hands. Gennadius therefore decided to move the Patriarchate to the Church of St Mary Pammakaristos in the main Christian part of the city, the Phanar district. Rather than convert the Holy Apostles into a mosque, Mehmed decided to demolish it and build a mosque of comparable magnificence on the site. The result was the Fatih Cami (Mosque of the Conqueror), which still occupies the site and houses Mehmed's tomb.
 Church reconstruction
Churches’ treasure
The most treasured possession of the church were the supposed skulls of Saints Andrew, St. Luke the Evangelist and St. Timothy but the church also held relics of Saint John Chrysostom, saint Gregory the Theologian and other Church Fathers, saints and martyrs. The church also held what was believed to be part of the "Column of Flagellation", to which Jesus had been bound and flogged. This venerated relic is today preserved in the patriarchal church of St. George at the Phanar. Until the 11th century, most emperors and many patriarchs and bishops were buried in this church.* Over the years the church acquired huge amounts of gold, silver and gems donated by the faithful. During the sack of Constantinople of 1204 in the Fourth Crusade, the church and the imperial sarcophagi were devastated and plundered by the Crusaders: most of the reliquaries, the gold and silver vessels decorated with precious stones, the icons, the imperial crowns, the somptuous vestments and other important objects were carried off to Western Europe. The Crusaders plundered the imperial tombs and robbed them of gold and gems. Not even Justinian's tomb was spared. The tomb of Emperor Heraclius was opened and his golden crown was stolen along with the late Emperor's hairs still attached on it. Today, many of these relics and treasures remain in the collections of European museums, especially in Rome and St. Mark's Basilica in Venice. The glorious tombs of the church were completely destroyed in the fall of Constantinople to the Turks (29th May 1453) by fanatical dervishes of sultan Mehmet II. According to the historian Kritoboulos, the dervishes smashed for 14 hours with clubs and steel rods the relics. After smashing them, they threw what was left in a lime furnace.
 Church reconstruction
Appearance
Apart from the little illustration shown above, there is no visual record of the Holy Apostles, but St Mark's Basilica in Venice was partly modeled on it (as was the Cathedrale de Saint Front in Périgeux, although likely more loosely). The 12th century writer Nicholas Mesarites has left a description of the church, of which only parts survive. Thanks to contemporary descriptions, we have a general idea of what the church looked like. The historian Eusebius of Caesarea described Constantine's construction of it as follows: “He had the church built to a great height, and he decorated it splendidly with slabs of various colors which covered it from the foundation to the roof. And over the roof he put finely fretted work and overlaid it everywhere with gold. The outside portion, which protected the edifice from rainfall, was of bronze rather than tiles, and this too gleamed with the abundance of gold. It brilliantly reflected the rays of the sun and dazzled the distant onlooker. A well-carved tracery of bronze and gold encircled the entire dome.”
Other manuscripts have preserved the text of an epigram that was placed over the main gate to the church, recording the deaths of the Twelve Apostles:
- Mark is put to death by the people of Alexandria.
- The great sleep of life Matthew sleeps.
- Rome sees Paul die by the sword.
- Philip is given what was given Peter.
- Bartholomew suffers death on the cross.
- Simon too on the cross ends his life.
- In Rome vain Nero crucifies Peter.
- In life and death John lives.
- Luke died peacefully at the end.
- The men of Patras brutally crucify Andrew.
- A knife severs the life paths of James.
- Lances kill Thomas in India.
 Fatih Cami, the mosque built by Sultan Mehmed II on the place of the St. Apostles Church
The place today
There is very little to see today at the site where the Church of the Holy Apostles once stood. Some reused building materials of the church, such as column pieces and stone blocks of the foundations, have been identified in the courtyard of the Fatih Mosque. One important relic of the church, part of the "Column of Flagellation" to which Christ had been bound and flogged is today preserved in the Patriarchal Church of St. George in Istanbul.
For a colorful description of the Church of the Holly Apostles with its famous tombs, see
Nicholas Mesarites, Ekphrasis on the Church of the Holy Apostles on the web address: website
Bibliography
- R. Janin, Constantinople Byzantine, La géographie ecclésiastique de l'Empire byzantin
- Cyril Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312-1453: Sources and Documents, 1986,
University of Toronto Press, website
- Alexander Van Millingen, Byzantine Churches in Constantinople
- Ken Dark, Ferudun Özgümüş, New evidence for the Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles from Fatih Camii, Istanbul, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, Volume 21, Number 4, November 2002, pp. 393- 413(21)
External links
Fatih Cami, the mosque built by Sultan Mehmed II
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