BYZANTINE CHURCHES
IN CONSTANTINOPLE

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited

LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA

MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO

Frontispiece.

NOTE ON THE MAP OF CONSTANTINOPLE

F. W. H.

BYZANTINE CHURCHES
IN CONSTANTINOPLE

THEIR HISTORY AND ARCHITECTURE

BY

ALEXANDER VAN MILLINGEN, M.A., D.D.
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, ROBERT COLLEGE, CONSTANTINOPLE
AUTHOR OF 'BYZANTINE CONSTANTINOPLE,' 'CONSTANTINOPLE'

ASSISTED BY

RAMSAY TRAQUAIR, A.R.I.B.A.
LECTURER ON ARCHITECTURE, COLLEGE OF ART, EDINBURGH

W. S. GEORGE, A.R.C.A., AND A. E. HENDERSON, F.S.A.

WITH MAPS, PLANS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1912

PREFACE

This volume is a sequel to the work I published, several years ago, under the title, Byzantine Constantinople: the Walls of the City, and adjoining Historical Sites. In that work the city was viewed, mainly, as the citadel of the Roman Empire in the East, and the bulwark of civilization for more than a thousand years. But the city of Constantine was not only a mighty fortress. It was, moreover, the centre of a great religious community, which elaborated dogmas, fostered forms of piety, and controlled an ecclesiastical administration that have left a profound impression upon the thought and life of mankind. New Rome was a Holy City. It was crowded with churches, hallowed, it was believed, by the remains of the apostles, prophets, saints, and martyrs of the Catholic Church; shrines at which men gathered to worship, from near and far, as before the gates of heaven. These sanctuaries were, furthermore, constructed and beautified after a fashion which marks a distinct and important period in the history of art, and have much to interest the artist and the architect. We have, consequently, reasons enough to justify our study of the churches of Byzantine Constantinople.

Of the immense number of the churches which once filled the city but a small remnant survives. Earthquakes, fires, pillage, neglect, not to speak of the facility with which a Byzantine structure could be shorn of its glory, have swept the vast majority off the face of the earth, leaving not a rack behind. In most cases even the sites on which they stood cannot be identified. The places which knew them know them no more. Scarcely a score of the old churches of the city are left to us, all with one exception converted into mosques and sadly altered. The visitor must, therefore, be prepared for disappointment. Age is not always a crown of glory; nor does change of ownership and adaptation to different ideas and tastes necessarily conduce to improvement. We are not looking at flowers in their native clime or in full bloom, but at flowers in a herbarium so to speak, or left to wither and decay. As we look upon them we have need of imagination to see in faded colours the graceful forms and brilliant hues which charmed and delighted the eyes of men in other days.

In the preparation of this work I have availed myself of the aid afforded by previous students in the same field of research, and I have gratefully acknowledged my debt to them whenever there has been occasion to do so. At the same time this is a fresh study of the subject, and has been made with the hope of confirming what is true, correcting mistakes, and gathering additional information. Attention has been given to both the history and the architecture of these buildings. The materials for the former are, unfortunately, all too scanty. No continuous records of any of these churches exist. A few incidents scattered over wide tracts of time constitute all that can be known. Still, disconnected incidents though they be, they give us glimpses of the characteristic thoughts and feelings of a large mass of our humanity during a long period of history.

The student of the architecture of these churches likewise labours under serious disadvantages. Turkish colour-wash frequently conceals what is necessary for a complete survey; while access to the higher parts of a building by means of scaffolding or ladders is often impossible under present circumstances. Hence the architect cannot always speak positively, and must leave many an interesting point in suspense.

Care has been taken to distinguish the original parts of a building from alterations made in Byzantine days or since the Turkish conquest; while, by the prominence given to the variety of type which the churches present, the life and movement observable in Byzantine ecclesiastical art has been made clear, and the common idea that it was a stereotyped art has been proved to be without foundation.

Numerous references to the church of S. Sophia occur in the course of this volume, but the reader will not find that great monument of Byzantine architectural genius dealt with in the studies here offered. The obstacles in the way of a proper treatment of that subject proved insuperable, while the writings of Salzenberg, Lethaby, and Swainson, and especially the splendid and exhaustive monograph of my friend Mr. E. M. Antoniadi, seemed to make any attempt of mine in the same direction superfluous if not presumptuous. The omission will, however, secure one advantage: the churches actually studied will not be overshadowed by the grandeur of the 'Great Church,' but will stand clear before the view in all the light that beats upon them.

I recall gratefully my obligations to the Sultan's Government and to the late Sir Nicholas O'Conor, British Ambassador at Constantinople, for permission to make a scientific examination of the churches of the city. To the present British Ambassador, Sir Gerard Lowther, best thanks are due for the facilities enjoyed in the study of the church of S. Irene.

I have been exceedingly fortunate in the architects who have given me the benefit of their professional knowledge and skill in the execution of my task, and I beg that their share in this work should be recognized and appreciated as fully as it deserves. To the generosity of the British School at Athens I am indebted for being able to secure the services of Mr. Ramsay Traquair, Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects and Lecturer on Architecture at the College of Art in Edinburgh. Mr. Traquair spent three months in Constantinople for the express purpose of collecting the materials for the plans, illustrations, and notes he has contributed to this work. The chapter on Byzantine Architecture is entirely from his pen. He has also described the architectural features of most of the churches; but I have occasionally introduced information from other sources, or given my own personal observations.

I am likewise under deep obligation to Mr. A. E. Henderson, F.S.A., for the generous kindness with which he has allowed me to reproduce his masterly plans of the churches of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, S. Mary Panachrantos, and many of his photographs and drawings of other churches in the city. I am, moreover, indebted to the Byzantine Research and Publication Fund for courteous permission to present here some of the results of the splendid work done by Mr. W. S. George, F.S.A., under unique circumstances, in the study of the church of S. Irene, and I thank Mr. George personally for the cordial readiness with which he consented to allow me even to anticipate his own monograph on that very interesting fabric. It is impossible to thank Professor Baldwin Brown, of the University of Edinburgh, enough, for his unfailing kindness whenever I consulted him in connection with my work. Nor do I forget how much I owe to J. Meade Falkner, Esq., for kindly undertaking the irksome task of revising the proofs of the book while going through the press.

I cannot close without calling attention to the brighter day which has dawned on the students of the antiquities of Constantinople since constitutional government has been introduced in the Ottoman Empire. Permission to carry on excavations in the city has been promised me. The archaeology of New Rome only waits for wealthy patrons to enable it to reach a position similar to that occupied by archaeological research in other centres of ancient and mediaeval civilizations. But the monuments of the olden time are perishable. Of the churches described by Paspates in his Byzantine Studies, published in 1877, nine have either entirely disappeared or lost more of their original features. It was no part of wisdom to let the books of the cunning Sibyl become rarer and knowledge poorer by neglecting to secure all that was obtainable when she made her first or even her second offer.

ALEXANDER VAN MILLINGEN.

     Robert College, Constantinople.

Πόλις ἐκκλησιῶν γαλουχέ, πίστεως ἀρχηγέ, ὀρθοδοξίας ποδηγέ

Nicetas Choniates.

CONTENTS

PLANS AND ILLUSTRATIONS