Istanbul Coda: the Chora Church (And More)

Come for the mosaics.

Last hours of my last day in Istanbul. I had a professional tour guide take me to the Chora Church to view the mosaics.

The first Chora Church building pre-dated even Hagia Sophia, but the addition of the decorative mosaics goes back to the 1300's, the late Byzantine period. This church has one of the finest collections of Constantinople mosaics that survive anywhere.

Let's have a look inside.

The mosaics, as with stained glass windows, depict Biblical scenes for an illiterate population. Very few could read and write back then, so religious arts was how Biblical stories were communicated. And mosaics were a popular artform for this.

After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, the Chora Church became a mosque. After Kemal Atatürk founded the modern Turkish state on more secular principles, it became a museum. Now, it is back to being a mosque.

In the Ottoman era, because of the Islamic prohibition on depicting the human form, the mosaics are plastered over, covered. They were not "destroyed" per se, but effectively were removed from view. While many of the mosaics have been lost, a great many have been recovered by being uncovered.

This is a dramatic mosaic, depicting the slaughter of the innocents. This is when King Herod, upon learning of the birth of Christ, and fearing for his continued rule in light of the birth of this new king, decreed that the children born around the time of the birth of Jesus were to be put to death. These are literally the first Christian martyrs recognized by the Catholic Church.

Fortunately, the other scenes depicting in these mosaics are not as gruesome.

This is Mary. You may recall I visited her house the other day.

This is the prayer area of the functioning mosque.

Shoes had to be removed in order to enter because that's the rule.

Here is St. Peter, the fundamentally flawed "rock" upon which Jesus Christ built his church:

 

And this is St. Paul:

Here is a classic annunciation scene:

It is not too different from the scene as depicted in much Renaissance art.

The benefactor of the mosaics of this church is hiding behind Mary's skirt:

He was greedy and corrupt, but he did end up financing a beautiful church with incredible mosaics.

The dome:

The lower scene on this mosaic depicts something most "modern" Christians do not like to even think about:

The judging of the dead, separating the wheat from the chaff and the sheep from the goats. We don't like to think nowadays about anyone being judged unworthy of eternal heaven. To many modern-era Christians, the population of Hell is 2: Satan and Hitler. That's it. This mosaic reminds us that we did not always have such an optimistic view of our destination after the end of these days.

This hallway is the place of the frescoes, rather than mosaics. And the place for the photo-portrait of a visiting tourist:

There are far more mosaics than frescoes and even though this is back to being a functioning mosque, the mosaics still are on display.

Frescoes, too.

The Chora Church is right near the Old City walls.

This is where the Ottoman troops besieged the city in the mid-1400's. The final siege, in which the city was completely surrounded and isolated, took place over 53 days in 1453, with population starving and trapped in a sanitation nightmare.

And here is the leader of the siege:

Sultan Mehmet.

Pigeons feasting on stale bread:

A lion feasting on a calf:

Unlike the above photo, with actual live pigeons feasting on actual tangible bread, this is merely a statuary lion feasting on a statuary depiction of a calf. No actual meat was consumed in this statue.

At this point, my tour guide is walking me to the nearest tram station for me to take a nice tram ride close (enough) to my hotel. Still, there have been interesting sights to see along the way.

Such as the Shehzade Mosque.

Why do I feel the new for a photo in the doorway to the Shehzade Mosque? It's a beautiful mosque, but that's not the reason.

It also is known as the "Prince Mosque." Unfortunately, sadly, the "Prince" in the name does not refer to Prince Rogers Nelson, the Artist Who Will Always Be Known As Prince, the man behind "Little Red Corvette" and the "Purple Rain" soundtrack.

Ablution station.

And, in the inner courtyard, another ablution station. In case your feet got dirty moving from one courtyard to the next.

You can tell this is not about the musical Prince because there is no purple inside.

It's magnificent nevertheless.

And with that, it was time to say "good-bye" to my tour guide and board the tram back to the part of town where my hotel is. But, first, I was a little hungry. So I stopped in a tourist restaurant -- they all are tourist restaurants in this part of the city -- it's just a question of how much you want to pay for the privilege of eating in the tourist part of town -- and ordered a pistachio milkshake.

The restaurant was called Mado. The other flavors of milkshakes and smoothies may have sounded more enticing (lemon!) (blackberry!), but where else can you get a pistachio milkshake?

The milkshake was so-so, unfortunately. Even though it was made with pistachio ice cream, is was not creamy and there was a noticeable lack of pistachio flavor. I thought you could assume there would be a noticeable pistachio flavor when you order a pistachio milkshake, but I assumed in error.

The meal was meatballs. Turkish meatballs. I've even many this trip and I can't get enough. But after this meal at Mado, I won't be getting any more Turkish meatballs in Turkey for awhile. I will return someday soon. But not for the pistachio milkshake at Mado.