ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE |
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Exarchate of Parishes
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| EPISCOPAL VICARIATE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND | ||
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A personal slant on our Istanbul Pilgrimage, 2007 by Ruth Nares
Initially I had thought of writing something like a ‘collection of impressions’ from our 8-day stay in Istanbul. But since returning home, I have recognised a change in myself, which has been accompanied by a growing awareness that there are ‘other The context of our pilgrimage, both the high point and overall purpose, was, of course, our visit to the Patriarchate with Bishop Basil, to participate in a Liturgy there, and to meet our Patriarch, His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew. One might say it was the crowning point of our stay (and as such was the central point and focus of the initial ‘report’). But the ripples go far wider than this, and it is these reflections I want to explore a little. It also seems crucial to understand, at least in part, the milieu in which our Patriarch lives, its geography and above all its history (although this in itself could amount to several volumes). In the words of Patriarch Bartholomew himself (during his speech at the first ever conference of Istanbul Greeks in the summer of 2006): “Even if the people are gone, the stones remain and shout they were here, their voices like a threnody coming out of the graves.” This is what one cannot escape in Istanbul. The buildings are eloquent in their silence, and at the same time cry out for you to know – to know how they were inhabited and by whom. They speak of endless stories. This peculiar magic, as Massavetas writes, stems from a profound schism. The present has little in common with the silent world of its buildings. The historic quarters are mostly inhabited by impoverished immigrants from Anatolia. For my own experience, two places we visited stand out where I felt the most intense, or poignant sense of melancholy. The first, contrary to my expectations, was Haghia Sophia itself (though I feel more inclined to write ‘herself’). I will not here go into her extraordinary architecture (a virtually unbelievable feat, described somewhere as an experiment in three-dimensional geometry), and the beauty which cannot be masked. But the state of her. It has Besides this, and the still extraordinary sense of space, some outstanding mosaics did survive. Christ Pantocrator over the imperial gate leading from the inner narthex to the nave. The Mother of God and Christ child (Platytera) in the apse – unveiled on Easter Sunday in 846. The upstairs galleries include the It would have felt wrong not to mention these surviving wonders – but also in a way they pointed to all that is no longer there: the thirty million tesserae, covered in gold leaf, which covered the upper part of the church above the marble revetments – one can only imagine the shimmering glow that would have infused the whole. Likewise the mosaic decorations in the supporting domes over the galleries… - but the sense of history, of all that has happened there, and its weight, felt overwhelming. One reads of how during the Crusaders’ (1204) conquest, mules were brought in to carry away the ‘booty’: those that slipped on the marble floors were slain on the spot; of other, far more bloody and sacrilegious scenes, in this the place where Vladimir’s envoys once “knew not whether they were in heaven or earth.” Having visited Haghia Sophia on the first day we were there, I returned on the last day, in late afternoon in the hope of fewer crowds of tourists, wondering if I would experience it any differently. In fact the sense or weight of melancholy pervaded me even more. I could never pretend that I experienced anything akin to what Sergei Bulgakov described when he visited Haghia Sophia in 1923 (which I will return to), shortly after being literally shipped out of Russia along with other exiles, by Lenin. It was still a mosque then, rather than the museum it became in 1935. Even so, Haghia Sophia resides over the city… brooding. It would be impossible – utterly unthinkable – to imagine the city without her. The second place that evoked such kindred feeling is one I will touch upon further along. There is something else – very much within the context, I would first like to explore. Orhan Pamuk, in his book Istanbul, devotes a whole chapter to what he calls this ‘confused, melancholic state’ – whose Turkish name is huzun. However the Turkish word, as he emphasises, denotes a melancholy which is communal rather than private. He powerfully argues that it is time to move towards a better understanding of this feeling that Istanbul carries as its fate. Huzun has an Arabic root and appears in the Koran –meaning deep spiritual loss. However, as he writes, there is a philosophical faultline – and one can find that there are two different huzuns. The first, as above can imply or denote its use for loss, or when we have invested too much in worldly pleasures and material gain. Pamuk illustrates the ambiguities one finds by comparing past writers from both east and west. Whilst he acknowledges that the approach outlined by Islamic thinkers is similar to the one proposed by Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy – he shows how the common ground comes out of two essentially different traditions. (The common etymology stems from the basis of humours in Aristotle’s day – melan khole – black bile) Burton believed that melancholy paved the way for happy solitude -regardless of whether it was the result or the cause – he saw solitude as the heart of melancholy. On the contrary, to El Kindi, a Muslim philosopher, Pamuk explicates – whilst huzun was both a mystical state and an illness, - its central preoccupation was the cemaat, or community of believers, and has to be judged by the values of the cemaat. Pamuk’s starting point, steeped in childhood memories of growing up in Istanbul (“Steamed up windows make me feel huzun”) hence shows how huzun is to be understood not as the melancholy of a solitary person, but the mood shared by millions of people together. “What I am trying to explain is the huzun of an entire city, of Istanbul. To feel this huzun is to see the scenes, evoke the memories, in which the city itself becomes the very illustration, the very essence, of huzun.” (He follows this by painting the feeling in six pages of outstanding and wholly memorable descriptive ‘scenes’, Istanbul pp 84-90). He cites Gautier (friend of Baudelaire), who when he described some of the city’s views as melancholy in the extreme, meant it as praise. In comparison with a somewhat different term, Pamuk also refers to tristesse, and its use by the much earlier Montaigne, who saw tristesse as “the enemy of self-reliant rationalism and individualism.” If there is any affinity with tristesse, Pamuk writes, it is only in as far as the fragility of peoples lives and the way they treat each other and the distance they feel from the centres of the west,” that “make Istanbul a city that newly arrived westerners are at a loss to understand.” Later he remarks, “Tristesse implies a guilt ridden westerner who seeks to assuage his pain by refusing to let cliché and prejudice colour his impressions. Huzun, on the other hand, is not a feeling that belongs to the outside observer. The “huzun in which we seeourselves reflected”, is “the huzun we absorb… and share as a community.” It is difficult to paraphrase or not to quote him:
They are nothing like the remains of great empires to be seen in western cities, preserved like museums of history and proudly Apparently Stephen of Novgorod, who visited in 1348, noted that its exterior walls were also decorated with mosaic, which “shines like the sun.” The fabulous iconostasis, made of solid gold and containing cloisonné icons of gold and precious stones was dismantled by the Crusaders in 1204. (These were taken to Venice and now form the centrepiece of St. Mark’s Cathedral’s well known Pala d’Oro. Included in the ‘collection’ there, are the Pantocrator’s holy vessels). An ageing caretaker let us in, where the three interlinked chapels (under the three domes one sees from the outside) were revealed. One of them - partially replastered, is used as a mosque, though in a fairly run down state. The other two chapels are in an appalling state, the walls bruised and battered, floors covered in debris from roosting pigeons – overall, in complete neglect. When the Byzantines recaptured the city in 1261 after the sack of 1204, their Genoese allies crossed over from Galata and stormed the Pantocrator (where some of the Venetians were still holding out), and in the fighting the monastery burned down. It was however rebuilt afterwards, regaining its status during the following (final) two centuries of Byzantine rule. Although, as I remarked to a fellow pilgrim, it gave another perspective to our own troubles, could the acute ‘huzun’ I felt, be a reflection of the Whole ‘community of believers’, our ‘equivalent’ of the cemaat, bothpast and present? I certainly did not feel merely an ‘onlooker’, or even simply a ‘westerner’ from the outside, trying to apprehend our Byzantine and Christian past. This melan khole was not purely ‘personal’ – and the pain seemed part of the very fabric of the walls, along with, I suppose, their past splendour and holiness. This sense of loss and griefseems not so much the one described above in the Sufi understanding of huzun, but more from the traditional one found in Koranic verses, although I suspect they are more intertwined than we are aware of. Either way, the sense of it very much felt like a kind of communion, with Orthodox believers who had lived or worshipped there through the ages, and as if the neglected church itself needed our prayers.
Speaking of prayers – if for ostensibly different reasons – I am reminded of the seminary we visited on the island of Halki, closed by the authorities in 1971, but still beautifully kept and tended, faithfully waiting for the time it will be allowed to open its doors again to seminarians and be a place of learning once more. We were welcomed by the deacon with a simple but very refreshing glass of water accompanied by rose-flavoured Turkish delight, before being shown around. Later when I lingered behind talking to him, the deacon told me he had been an economist in the city (of Istanbul), before retiring to the seminary “to prepare my soul for the New Jerusalem”.
He told me of the Muslim women who go there to pray before the Byzantine icon of the Mother of God, often petitioning her for a child, and returning in their time to give thanks to Her. When I mentioned that I would pray for the Seminary (to be opened) he referred to the monks who sometimes visit from Mount Athos, who say “When you pray, it must be from the very bottom of your heart and soul, then,” he said, gesturing to the sky, “your prayers will reach up high. If you pray only… lightly, then your prayers will just reach the ceiling and fall down again!” A salutary lesson.
Where our present Patriarch Bartholomew studied as a younger man at Halki Seminary, it was Gennadius Scholarius, a monk from the Monastery of Pantocrator, who began the line of Patriarchs On Tuesday 29th May, 1453, when the 21 year old Mehmet the Conqueror entered the city after waves of assault, and “looked about to see its great size, its situation, its grandeur and beauty, its teeming population, its loveliness and the costliness of its churches and public buildings…
He then rode directly to Haghia Sophia, where he dismounted and fell to his knees, sprinkling a handful of earth over his turban in a sign of humility, before ordering it to be immediately converted to Islamic worship. However he encouraged the return of those Greeks who had fled the city before the Conquest, and resettled in the city all of the prisoners who had been part of the spoils; a chronicler writes that he gave them land and houses. Apart from these, most of the new population resulted from an imperial decree for resettlement, including Muslims, Christians and Jews. He understood that the return of the Greeks – and others - was necessary for his new capital to achieve the state of ‘world metropolis’. On 1st January 1454, Gennadius was consecrated as Patriarch. Mehmet presented him with a sceptre and personally escorted him at the beginning of the procession to the Church of the Holy Apostles. (now Fatih Mosque) The Sultan issued a firmanor imperial decree, which guaranteed to Gennadius that
The Armenians were headed by the Gregorian patriarch, and the Jewish by the chief rabbi, and all of these were granted authority extending not only to religious matters but also to most legal questions (other than criminal cases, which were tried by the sultan’s judges). In 1456 the Patriarchate was moved to the Church of Pammakaristos, (now Fethiye Camii) remaining there until 1586, when it moved to other places before settling in its present quarters at St. George’s in Phanar in the 17th century. For the next several hundred years Christians, Muslims and Jews lived alongside one another under the Ottomans. It was only in 1821 that the Phanariot Greeks (who had earned a place in the new Ottoman order as translators and governors) were punished for the revolution that broke out in mainland Greece. The Turks traditionally studied Arabic, (necessitated by Islam), and Persian (language of literature and poetry). Western ‘etiquette’ was alien to them, whereas many of the Phanari aristocrats had lived or studied in Paris, Italy or Vienna – therefore the Ottoman State’s foreign policy was left largely in the hands of Greeks. (Notwithstanding latter-day Sultans’ suspicion of their becoming too powerful.) There is not space here to describe the politics and circumstances - suffice to say that the Greek revolution was dominated not by Phanariot Greeks, but a rising class of diaspora Greeks and commercial bourgeoisie with a different set of aspirations to, and to some degree at odds with the Phanariots. With a horrible irony, although the Phanari Greeks neither controlled nor instigated the revolt, it was they who paid a very heavy toll with massacre and plunder by the Turks. The culmination came on Easter Day 1821, with the infamous hanging of Patriarch Gregory V (held responsible for, or accused of not having contained the revolt), in the doorway to the Patriarchate. These doors have been sealed closed ever since. As Massavetas wrote, “Phanari lay in ashes. Many Phanariotes fled to Russia, France and Egypt, constituting the most refined stratum of the Greek diaspora. Few opted for Greece, looking down at the new classes ruling the fortunes of the small state.” Most of those who remained settled in Pera, which became the new force, with apparently a more secular and westernising elite that replaced the Phanari theocracy. Pera became something new in the traditional model of an Ottoman city, where different enclaves were set up for different ethnic groups. It became ‘proudly cosmopolitan’, and it is said that the Grande Rue and other main arterial streets were lined with signs in Greek, French, Armenian, Ottoman, Russian and Ladino. With the absence of Muslims and their religious prohibitions, it became the place where sultans experimented with European innovations such as the telegraph and telephone, before allowing them elsewhere. The architecture is stunning in its eclecticism; after a disastrous fire in 1870 wooden buildings were forbidden, and rebuilding turned it into a district of multi-storey Parisienne appartements. Art Nouveau was incorporated into other styles, creating as Massavetas describes, “an architectural hybrid, neither European nor Ottoman”, more an architectural expression of Levantine Cosmopolitanism. But it seems it had always had something of that tradition of mix – nineteenth century travellers commented that “were it not for the fezzes, one would forget that Pera is in the Orient.” It began as the crossroads of races, languages, lifestyles and ideas, and had its heyday in the ‘armistice’ years between 1918 and 1923, with Constantinople’s allied occupation after Ottoman defeat in the Great War. It was also the first port of call for Russians following the collapse of the imperial “white Army” before Bolshevik advance. Canteens and hospitals were set up by the allies for them, with the Red Cross and the Ottoman Red Crescent joining in. There were also the musicians, painters, intellectuals, and the young Greeks marvelled at the refugees, “who all spoke perfect French, like Chekhov heroes.” The women were named “harashos”, which became the term for the beautiful and liberated modern woman, and Massavetas relates that during the 1920s instances of Turkish men neglecting their wives for a “harasho” mistress was commonplace. The Russian community at its peak numbered about 150,000, around 12 percent of the city’s population. Many left or were driven away during the nationalism of the 1930s and 40s. The economic immigrants of the last decade or so has given them a different reputation, and Massavetas mentions that Russian ‘elders’ of the previous époque tend to write them off as ‘soviet bred’. I have so far only touched upon a small portion of what is Istanbul. But there are two more ‘elements’ which cannot be passed over , the first being the Bosphorous: With one shore in Europe, the other, Asia, it seems that part of Istanbul’s magic resides in the fact the city is spread across two continents – separated by the Bosphorous. It is as perplexing to think of Istanbul as European as it also is in purely ‘Asian’ terms. It seems to be this very ‘schism’, mentioned earlier, which renders its beauty, its mystery, its huzun, so compelling. From the sea of Marmara to the Black sea, it forms a long and extravagant avenue, inspiring poets, writers and painters since antiquity, as well as being of great strategic and economic importance. The walls make up the other ‘element’, which literally shored up the city against invaders, and I can only echo the sense of awe that overcomes one which Massavetas writes of when seeing them. “I wonder whether the grandeur of human achievement, the majesty of strength, the glory of antiquity, the pomp of memories, the melancholy of ruins and beauty of nature have ever been commingled to this degree, a spectacle simultaneously awakening wonder, respect and terror, worthy of Homer”, wrote Edmondo d’Amicis of the city walls. Although large sectors were ruined by earthquakes, sieges and cannon assaults, the greatest destruction took place in peacetime – first with the construction of the railways in the 1870s; and then, “an even greater disaster” being the restoration plan of the late 1980s – devised by the municipalities and funded by UNESCO. Many archaeologists denounced the disappearance of the surviving greek inscriptions and emblems, and we saw a stretch where brand-new towers have sprung up, resembling a portion of Legoland or, to quote Massavetas, “like part of the décor of a Las Vegas nightclub”. Whilst parts of them retain a vivid contact with Byzantium, the atmosphere has been dreadfully damaged by concrete constructions and a dual carriageway alongside the portion we drove along; where the moat once was, we saw Anatolian peasants growing and selling their vegetables, (it is apparently said that the best salads grow out of the City Walls) – but we were on our way to Zoodochus Pege, just outside the City Walls. This Monastery is an oasis in another run down area. It was vandalised in the anti-Greek riots of 1955, when it was ravaged and received a horrendous battering, the monks cells burnt and the patriarchs tombs smashed. Despite the indelible trauma, the nuns with all their prayer have returned a wonderful air of tranquillity to it, and we lingered there for some time. It is built over a sacred spring which according to legend healed Justinian’s kidney problems, after he ran into a group of women who were visiting the source in the woods opposite the walls. They informed him of the water’s healing powers, which he drank and was healed, and built a church there. The present one dates from 1833. The courtyard is covered in marble tombstones originating from disappeared Greek cemeteries. Some bear inscriptions in the karamanli script, used by Greek communities from Cappadocia and inner Anatolia. It is Turkish written with the Greek alphabet. This in itself speaks volumes. Another pilgrim from our little group has told me how important she felt the Mother of God was during our pilgrimage. This very much resonates for me. She was also, after all, the Protectress of the city for many hundreds of years... prayed to and adored. (It was the icon of the Hodegetria Mother of God which headed the procession, followed by John Palaeologus on a white horse, after his General recaptured the city in 1261). I felt her very much as a presence during our pilgrimage; at Blachernae, especially, which I haven’t yet even mentioned, where there is another sacred spring from which we drank. It was also here that the Mother of God appeared, with her veil, which is the origin of Pokrov. I loved the simplicity of this church, and the obvious love and care of the place in the person of the caretaker, with his little girl. There is no sign left of the Blachernae Palace that covered this whole area. It was a kind of Versailles in its time, an imperial refuge detached from the city, which the Comneni dynasty moved to in the 11th century. Odo de Deuil, a Catholic monk who arrived there in 1147 as ambassador to the French king Louis VII, wrote that “Its exterior is of almost incomparable beauty, and its interior surpasses anything I could say…. So much that I couldn’t tell whether it is the subtlety of the art or the preciousness of the materials that gives it the greater beauty or value.” The only thing that marks its presence now is the massive strengthening of the city walls, where it stood. Massavetas terms Blachernae, “Imperial district turned slum” – but the gentle and tranquil beauty and atmosphere of the shrine and spring over which the church is built, dedicated to the Mother of God, rather blinded our eyes to that.
Chora points to all that is lost from Constantinople. However it also embodies the ‘renaissance’ before its fall, representing the Greeks rediscovering their ethnic identity amidst the shrinking of the multi-ethnic empire. The discontent at the decay and corruption led them to seek solace in aesthetic and spiritual glory. There is a difference between the murals and mosaics here and those in other Byzantine churches in the city. (with the exception of Pammakaristos, whose mosaics are from the same period). Massavetas points out that the resplendent colours in Chora remind one of the Italian masters: “A bright black, which seems to radiate the light of darkness, has no equivalent elsewhere in the city. Neither has the extensive use of white in the background of the mosaics and friezes, or in the clothes.” The forms go beyond the stylised Byzantine ascetic line, and attention is paid to perspective. We are told that the lively colours and naturalism of forms is enough for “many experts to term … Chora humanist.” This seems extreme to me but perhaps contributes an element. The area between Pammakaristos and Chora comprises two of the districts called Little Tehran, where Islamic fundamentals live – there were women here covered under black chadors, the men in felt skullcaps and baggy trousers. It is said polygamy (though illegal) thrives here with families with more children than they can support, and girls shut in their homes and barred from attending school, where they would have to unveil. It is not where the secular elites go, and it hits the news whenever there are demonstrations in favour of abolishing the secular republic and reinstating the Caliphate, where sharia law would be the state law. As is well known, Patriarch Bartholomew has worked unceasingly in promoting religious freedom and human rights, with constant initiatives to advance not simply tolerance but dialogue among the world’s religions. “The sublime, and especially the mystic quest for God, eliminates the correlation of political and ethnic conflicts with religious faith.” (Patriarch Bartholomew, in a speech at the Farewell Reception of the inter-religious Conference ‘Peace and Tolerance II, Istanbul, 2005) “… It leads to the realisation the he who loves God truly and selflessly understands the ecumenicity of humankind, … and the opposition toward the divine will for the intention of elevating a nation on the ruins of another.” The following year, in an interview published on 19th November in the daily newspaper Sabah, he addressed the issues of religious freedom and referred to the closing of the Halki seminary by saying
It seems to be a measure of how skewed is our world, with the current frenzied behind-the-scenes (if vital) activity in the USA and Europe in trying to dissuade Turkey from attacking the Kurds over the southern Turkish border, whilst we hear no whisper or attempt at persuasion in addressing the same Government to grant equal (also vital) rights to its citizens, and allowing the doors of the Seminary on Halki to open. This, in the wider context of our Patriarch being the Head of a Church to which three hundred million people across many nations, belong, seems scandalous. It is hard to believe that nothing can be done. Elsewhere Patriarch Bartholomew mentions a point we have reached “in a spirit of pilgrimage from milestone to milestone.”, and it is perhaps this “spirit of pilgrimage” that is the key. It has the capacity to be as much an interior journey as our ‘exterior’ one. In his book The road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life, Jim Forest draws out the many different kinds of pilgrimage: those in which we leave fear behind, , pilgrimages of illness and healing, pilgrimages of intense listening, of wonder and surprise, and those solely of individual value. In the end it’s a journey of the heart. On both a personal and corporate level, in the words of His All Holiness, (spoken at Sibiu, in Romania, 10 days before we met with him at the Patriarchate in Istanbul), “We bless and greet this sacred journey of European Christianity, which is guided by the light of Christ, as from one lighthouse to another lighthouse, through which we recognise His own crucified journey through the centuries…”. It is through this conviction, he later exhorts us, that “…we must also not only proclaim with our words but also witness in our lives, that we are all transitional sojourners in this world, ‘having no lasting city here, but rather looking for the city that is to come’.” (Heb. 13:14) At the same time, it seems, Istanbul is in a way a microcosm of the world. It felt a privilege to be in the place that was the epicentre of Orthodox Christianity for so many centuries, to gain glimpses and sense everywhere the immensity of its history, to sense the shimmering huzun of which Pamuk writes so eloquently, and earthly home of our Patriarch. And I have not here even alighted on Chora, the experience of which would be hard to condense, nor the unique experience of a more ‘individual’ visit to the Church of Sts Sergius & Baccus – the peace and tranquillity contained in what can only be called architectural integrity to perfection. Nor the innocent laughter ‘borne of friends’ in rapport with fellow pilgrims. One reads with a degree of hope of the potential possibilities which may be embodied in the statement and invitation, “A Common Word Between Us and You”, issued to Church leaders all across the world, by 138 leading Muslim scholars, dated 13 October, the feast day concluding the Ramadam fast, the first day of which we witnessed on our arrival in Istanbul. Perhaps it is a spark of the all-encompassing ‘vision’ in Haghia Sophia that overtook Sergei Bulgakov, where initially, “I experienced a sense of inner transparancy, the limitations of my small and suffering self disappeared, my soul was cured of it as I flowed out over this firmament and fused with it. My soul became the world: I am in the world and the world is in me.” He sensed it as a release from the “emptiest and most deadening elements in the world …”, and in the midst of this he experienced a new apocalyptic vision. As he stood at the source of Orthodox Christianity, Bulgakov was struck by the dignity and grace of the Muslims who now prayed to Allah in Justinian’s church, and felt the misguidedness of wartime Slavophile dreams of restoring a cross to Haghia Sophia, and the misunderstanding of Sophia’s true ecumenical mission, which must appear in its entirety before the end. He chided himself immediately: the time for such visions was over, for launching new schemes and building houses of cards. Was it not a mere dream? But in the end he could not resist, the power of the vision won him over, (one of the decisive moments in his life), and he concluded that in this vision lay the voice of the church – a universal, ecumenical church. We might surmise that Patriarch Bartholomew has had a share in this vision. As with Bulgakov (who was Orthodox to the core), he acknowledges that “the Light of Christ shines upon all”, and the “One true God, to Whom all the faithful of the monotheistic religions turn to and aim toward, can gradually be known depending on the cleanness of one’s heart.” In drawing this out, and acknowledging love as a divine attribute, the Patriarch questions: “Is this a utopia? That is of no importance. What is important is that we desire this; that subsequently, our heart embraces all with the hope of salvation… and that through this we understand the extent of God’s goodness that desires this…” (in a speech at the Farewell Reception of Peace and Tolerance II, Istanbul 2005). Istanbul may have indeed changed since it was an imperial city, but as John Freely writes, “those who know it best feel that its essential character and spirit have survived the transformation,” (like its ‘emblem’ or heart, Haghia Sophia) and chiming with Bulgakov he continues, “almost as if it had an immortal soul.” The same sense appears with Petrus Gyllius four centuries earlier: “It seems to me that while other cities are mortal, this one will remain as long as there are men on earth.” It is as mentioned earlier what Massavetas has sensed, “a potential that refuses to die”, which perhaps resonates in us all. Istanbul is a touchstone, and whilst we may in part have only scratched the surface, I hope this may invite future pilgrims to delve further. Ruth Nares
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aspects’ also crying out to be heard. This sense has been confirmed and deepened through a sort of compulsive ‘reading up’ of other writers on the city – writers who actually live there and have been captured by it – namely in particular, John Freely and Alexandros Massavetas, not to mention Orhan Pamuk who was also born and grew up there. Istanbul is a haunting place, and most certainly casts a spell on one. As Massavetas has written, it is a city of loss, of absences, and “confronting Istanbul means confronting oneself.”
Houses, churches (the majority of which have become mosques) and synagogues remain as memories of those who have left. The city has largely lost its non-muslim inhabitants, but retained their architectural legacy. There is an energy, a faded grandeur, “a potential that refuses to die”. It is this ‘other’ that one is drawn to pursue. The visual aesthetics and absences at times seem to supercede the presences. Yet paradoxically the presences contain the absences. One is thus bombarded from all sides – an experience in itself.
been alleged in the past that the authorities’ treatment of Haghia Sophia was indicative of a deep complex. A colossally tall and wide tower of scaffolding in the nave, which has been there for decades, has been ‘abandoned’, successfully obscuring a vast area and making it impossible to truly take in the qualities of light and space for which it is renowned. Massavetas notes that rarely is there any work carried out or any workers around – and that many people question why the scaffolding was even put there. 
remainder of a Deesis, with the face of Christ incredibly fine and lifelike. And most wonderful in a way – above the door from the narthex to the exit we see the Emperor Constantine offering his city to the enthroned Mother of God, while Justinian on the other side is offering her Haghia Sophia. Throughout the Byzantine era it was virtually unthinkable that anyone other than the Mother of God was the true Protector of the city. It also felt that she very much ‘figured’ throughout our pilgrimage, which I will return to later. 
The second rises out of Sufi mysticism, which is more positive and compassionate. To the Sufis, as he elaborates, huzun is the spiritual anguish we feel because we cannot be close enough to Allah. Hence the suffering of grief and emptiness originates due to loss of this relationship. Moreover as he writes, it is the absence not the presence of huzun which causes distress. It is the paradox of the failure to experience huzun which leads one to feel it. It is in this line of logic that Islamic culture has come to hold huzun in high esteem, in its culture, poetry and everyday life. Whilst we may cast our eyes back to the glories of the Byzantine era, Pamuk is intensely aware of the more recent history of the past century, with the destruction of the Ottoman era – and how this is also reflected in the city’s landscapes and its people. He focuses on a way of looking at life that, as he says, implicates us all, “not only spiritually but as a state of mind” that, as he writes, is “ultimately as life affirming as it is negating.”
displayed. “The people of Istanbul simply carry on with their lives amid the ruins. Many westerners find this charming. …” However, as he says, the fastest flight from the huzun of the ruins is by ignoring all the historical monuments, and for many Istanbul residents, poverty and ignorance have served them well to this end. “But it catches up with them: By neglecting the past and severing their connections with it, the huzun they feel in their mean and hollow efforts is all the greater.” Still, in being resigned to poverty, and imbued the honour accorded it in Sufi literature, huzun gives their resignation an air of dignity. “But it also explains why it is their choice to embrace failure, indecision, defeat and poverty so philosophically and with such pride, suggesting that huzun is not the outcome of life’s worries… but their principle cause.”
So what was the profound and intense melancholy, or heartache, that I felt inside the Church of Christ Pantocrator? Founded by John II Comnenus, and his Hungarian wife Eirene, (depicted in mosaic in Haghia Sophia gallery), it was once the centrepiece of part of the city’s most important foundations, the Monastery of the Pantocrator, one of the most renowned monasteries in Byzantium As well as a monastery and a church, a whole complex was incorporated in its environs, including a hospice for the aged, a hostel for travellers, an asylum hospital and a medical school and library. This probably influenced and certainly prefigured the social welfare system provided in the ensuing era of imperial mosque complexes built by the Ottomans in other parts of the city. We were not allowed to take photos inside, but the battered Byzantine exterior walls bear witness to what it once was. 
following the fall of Constantinople. He was against the emperor’s appeal (John VIII Palaelogous) for a policy of Union between Greek and Latin Churches (a vain effort, John Freely writes, to obtain help from the west in fighting the Turks). Denouncing the emperor for this, he famously pronounced “To the Catholic mitre, I would prefer the Turkish turban.” Turkish rule was looked upon as far preferable to being under the latin Catholic church. How could they forget the plundering of the most coveted city in history, ‘the city of cities’, described by Geoffrey de Villehardouin, leader of the Fourth Crusade as the “noblest in the Universe”. He narrates how, on the Crusaders’ first open-mouthed glimpses, “they could scarcely believe their senses…”, how they set fire to Constantinople during the siege, where huge conflagrations consumed more than a third of the city, with churches and palaces burnt to the ground, “and in the end more houses burnt than those contained in three of the most populous cities of France.” A merciless plunder followed, of treasures that had accumulated from all over the world over nine centuries. Massavetas cites Greek historian Niketas Khoniates: “How shall I begin to narrate the deeds of these abominable men,” he wrote, “Alas, the images, which ought to be been adored, were trodden underfoot… They snatched the precious reliquaries… and used the broken remnants for pans and drinking cups.” He laments the pillage of Haghia Sophia, where the sacred altar “formed of all kinds of precious materials” was broken into bits and distributed among soldiers, and where a prostitute was made to dance on the patriarchal throne. Constantinople never really recovered from the 1204 Crusade; for the next two centuries, its glory was on the wane. 
It seems that all the most meaningful places we visited, the once glorious churches of Pammakaristos, Pantocrator, Chora, Zoodochus Pege, not to mention St. Georges in Phanar – are in what have become among the poorest or most derelict districts. Phanari became a magnet for migrants from the Black Sea region, as well as gypsies and Kurdish people, flocking in from the 1960s onwards, as it contained hundreds of houses abandoned in the Greek exodus. It is however, under a restoration project.