- Bulgarian St. Stephen Church
The Bulgarian St Stephen Church ( _bg. Църква „Свети Стефан“; _tr. Sveti Stefan Kilisesi), also known as the Bulgarian Iron Church, is a Bulgarian Orthodox church in
Istanbul ,Turkey , famous for being made ofcast iron .The richly ornamented church is a three-domed cross-shaped
basilica . Thealtar faces theGolden Horn and a 40 m-high belfry, the six bells of which were cast inYaroslavl , rises above thenarthex .The church belongs to the Bulgarian minority in the city. The Bulgarians of the
Ottoman Empire used to pray at the churches of the Phanar Orthodox Patriarchy, but due to nationalistic movements, Bulgarians were allowed a national church in the 19th century, theBulgarian Exarchate .Initially, a small wooden church was erected on the shore of the Golden Horn between Balat and Fener squares (near
Eyüp district), where the current church is located. A house was donated by the statesmanStefan Bogoridi and it was reorganized as a wooden church. It was inaugurated on9 October 1849 and became an important site of theBulgarian National Revival . The Ottomanroyal decree of28 February 1870 establishing the Bulgarian Exarchate was first read in the church.After the original wooden structure suffered from a fire, the larger current building was constructed at its place. An iron frame was preferred to concrete reinforcement due to the weak ground conditions. The construction plans were prepared by
Hovsep Aznavur , an Armenian of Istanbul origin. An international competition was conducted to produce the prefabricated parts of the church, won by anAustria n company, [http://www.waagner-biro.at/CDA/main/EN/SB/index.html R. Ph. Waagner] . The prefabricated parts, weighing 500ton s, were produced inVienna in 1893-1896 and transported to Istanbul by ship through theDanube and theBlack Sea .After one and a half years' work, the church was completed in 1898 and inaugurated by Exarch Joseph on
8 September that year. The main skeleton of the church was made ofsteel and covered by metal boards. All the pieces were attached together with nuts, bolts, rivets orwelding . In terms of architecture, the church combinesNeo-Gothic andNeo-Baroque influences.St Stephen was the product of 19th century experimentation with prefabricated
iron church es. The British, who invented corrugated iron in 1829, manufactured portable iron churches to send to far-flung colonies likeAustralia . TheEiffel Tower 's creator, French engineerGustave Eiffel , designed iron churches that were sent as far as thePhilippines andPeru . Now St Stephen is one of the world's few surviving prefabricated cast iron churches.In addition to the St Stephen Church, there is another Bulgarian Orthodox church in Istanbul — the St Demetrius Church in Feriköy.
Gallery
References and external links
* [http://www.svetistephan.com/ststefan.htm Information about the church on a site about the Bulgarians in Istanbul] bg icon
* [http://www.svstefan.com/?language=en&p=objective The St Stephen Foundation] en icon bg icon tr icon
* [http://novini.dir.bg/2006/04/18/news82561.html A Bulgarian National Radio report also telling the history of the church] bg icon
* [http://www.monkeytravel.org/tur8.html Monkeytravel info and photos] (incl. detail photo) en icon
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.