More scenes from St Savior church in Chora

Flight to Egypt

Wedding at Cana, the turning of water into fine wine

Feeding of the five thousand with 2 fish and a few loaves of bread

Ecclesiastical frock, fresco details

 The wise men asking King Herod where the new king was born

 Mary and baby Jesus, a fresco

 More miracles

It's unusual to see both mosaics and frescoes in a single church. Mostly its either only mosaics like the Byzantine churches in Sicily. Monreale and the Palantine chapel, both in Palermo, has spectacular Byzantine mosaics that are so worth seeing. As for Byzantine frescoes, the place is Cappadocia in central Turkey which we will visit later. Here in Istanbul we had our first taste of Byzantine frescoes but we would be moved by the ones in Cappadocia.
I love this church, the only one not used as a mosque in Istanbul where the mosaics and frescoes are more or less intact. It's not easy to get here and there are no crowds. The people who find themselves are die hard thrill seekers looking for the unusual and they are so rewarded. Like any other trip, I don't want the canned experience. Everywhere we went in Turkey, everyone traveled with their Lonely Planet guide tucked under their arm, us included. Talk about a canned experience. Our guide in Cappadocia was musing about the little secret tips in Lonely Planet, we think only the few elect knows, but we will realise that every reader of Lonely Planet can find out and they are not really secrets.

Death of Mary

A very popular icon depiction of the death of Mary or the 'Dormition'. Supposedly Jesus is at the bedside holding 'a baby' or the soul of Mary. There are so many legends circulating about what happened to Mary, some say she went to live in Ephesus with John the Apostle. There is 'Mary's house' in Ephesus where people visit to make pilgrimages. The Gypsies in France believed that she left the Holy Land with Mary Magdalene in a boat and landed on the shores of the south of France. Gypsies reenact the landing scene twice a year and its a big thing for them. Their patron saint being Mary Magdalene.

Pantocrator

Jesus Christ, ruler of the world is another very important Orthodox icon and is placed at the head of any church in the most prominent and important part. Christ has a golden halo, in His left hand it a bible and His right hand is raised to bless.

Deesis

Deesis, an important icon of Jesus in the centre, flanked by Mary on His right and John the Baptist on His left. This is a continuing theme in Orthodox church iconography. Suddenly I became interested in the Orthodox icons and liturgy. It reminded me of my childhood, going to an Anglican church that had very similar liturgy. It reminded me of the church service I heard in a Coptic church in Cairo. Since coming back from Turkey I have been researching on the Orthodox church and found a lot of very impressive things. Today it is not surprising that people have converted to the Orthodox faith.

Rho-chi

I'm into Byzantine icons. There were times in the early days of christianity when being a christian was a death sentence punishable by death, like being sport for gladiators and lions in an arena. Christians created a sign, 'the fish' to identify to each other of their faith in Jesus.

Byzantine church and frescoes

While they are fast fading, they are still well preserved. Byzantine frescoes and mosaics differ from their renaissance cousins, those painted by Titian, Giotto or Michaelangelo and others. In renaissance art, the artists are known but not so in Byzantine paintings. In fact, the whole idea in Byzantine art is that the message is revered not the artists. Byzantine art illuminates the whole bible message, it is a tool to teach the uneducated congregants about the scriptures. These were the very few we saw in Istanbul formerly Constantinople, capital city of the Byzantine Empire. We would see a lot later in Cappadocia. What we saw would remain with us forever, the beauty and the faith of the congregants, a people we could only now conjecture about who they were. The bible does give a little insight, both in Acts Chapter 2 and I Peter 1.

Kariye Muzesi

This is the church of St Savior in Chora. It is now known by it's Turkish name. No one could understand me when I asked how to get there. Even when I knew the Turkish name, my pronunciation was so attrocious, again, no one understood me. Finally we found a taxi driver who knew and off we went. The building is 11thC Byantine but the frescoes and mosiacs were 14thC and absolutely beautiful. Other than the Haghia Sophia, this was one of the very few Byzantine churches being opened to the public. Most have been converted to mosques, others are locked shut. Church services are not allowed, so its been turned into a museum. Here it houses some of the world's most beautiful frescoes and mosaics of Byzantine origin. Right now my interest is in Byzantine history, churches, saints and liturgy.

The waterways of Istanbul

The Golden Horn, the Bosphorus straits and the Marmara sea, all surround Istanbul. It's a strange situation to be in both Europe and Asia. These are very busy waterways, with all kinds of ships and boats plying those waters. Unfortunately we didn't have time for any cruise, neither cruise on the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus or the Princess islands. As usual we were time starved Americans, eking out a little time from our busy lives to do a little traveling. Our guide to Cappadocia asked if we would come back, he said, lots of people have said they'll come back but never does....'life happens...and we move on to other things...' I want to but I told him, I didn't know if I will.... but we'll stay in touch..' But we met a lot of people who are being lulled into staying..... indefinitely. We've traveled so much but never saw this phenomenon where travelers have their plans upended and finding themselves staying indefinitely, sometimes because they fell in love with the super persuasive Turkish person. Or they just hang out and stay, sleeping late and spend endless hours playing backgammon like what all Turkish men does. Turkish men spend endless daylight hours in tea shops playing some kind of board game. I guess it is very persuasive, to spend our daylight moments 'lotus eating' rather come home to do the 9-5 thing called 'work'. But like Odysseus, we must tie ourselves to the mast of the ship and find our way home!

Turkish or apple tea

I don't know what is apple tea but we drank it, it didn't taste so hot. I like Turkish tea, they grow their own tea. Coffee is available but it is called 'American coffee' but it is actually Nescafe. Things are changing, percolated coffee is slowly being available. No mint tea like in Morocco where all tea are mint tea and already sweetened for you and it is always way too sweet. People in Morocco drink too much sweetened mint tea and their teeth are reported to be rotting away.

The fish market

Once we crossed the Galata bridge, we came upon this fish market, a very lively one. It was a lot of fun to see it. I have seen photos and paintings of the fish market and here we were, standing right there. It was a wonderful feeling, I dream about it and then I find myself there. There was a guy frying up some fish but we had already ate before we crossed the bridge. It reminded us of Essaouira in Morocco where we ate fish fry with our fingers.

View from Taksim

One is supposed to walk across the Galata bridge to the Beyoglu neighborhood, turn around and view the Istanbul (European side) from there and this is what you'll see, the bejewelled skyline with its numerous minarets. The waterway is very busy with all kinds of watercrafts, criss crossing the straits. Views of mosques and minarets can be be seen from every vantage point, no matter which angle the camera is pointing, its the same view. Mosques and minarets dot the skyline. This was Constantinople, home to the Byzantine Empire and most of the churches have been converted to mosques. Some churches became museums, the others are locked tight. We will visit my favorite church in later posts, church of St Savior in Chora.