Hagia Theodosia

Department Archive
Collection Byzantine Research Fund
Reference No. BRF/02/02/01/021
Level Item
Place Istanbul
Dates 1870-1880
Donor/Creator Berggren, Mr Guillaume
Scope and Content View of the east end. This is a commercial photo. The photograph was found along with 7 more by the same creator/artist inside a copy of 'A Letter to the Right Honourable Lord Aldenham upon the subject of a Byzantine Evangelion' by Edwin Freshfield.
Further information The imposing church of Hagia Theodosia (Gul Camii) has puzzled earlier and modern scholarship regarding the identification both of original parts of the Byzantine building as well as of the church in the sources. The surviving cross-domed building rests on a vaulted podium of masonry uniform to that of the original upper sections of the church: alternate courses of recessed brick and stone decorated occasionally with vertical bricks which suggest a possible date between 1000 and 1150. The barrel-vaulted sanctuary with the flanking chapels at ground and gallery level also seem to be Byzantine. The rest of the building was either rebuilt or drastically restored by the Turks.