Mosque of the Rose, the Iron Church and Asia

David
Today was a relatively lightly-scheduled one. We started out by walking to a mosque known as the “Mosque of the Rose” in Turkish. There are a few stories explaining the name, the most beautiful of which is that, since the church was named Hagia Theodosia, churchgoers would fill it with flowers on St. Theodosia’s feast day. As it would happen, St. Theodosia’s day in 1453 was the day before the Turks took the city. When the Turks entered the church, they found it bedecked in fresh flowers and thus converted it to a mosque and gave it its unusual name.
The mosque itself was, to be honest, a little underwhelming. It had neither the soaring architecture nor the elaborate decoration of many of the other places of worship we have visited over the last few days. The sole point of interest was a small tomb up a winding set of stairs, supposedly belonging to either the last Emperor of Constantinople (the Christian believe) or one of Christ’s apostles (the Muslim belief). Since Christ and his apostles are recognized as holy men in Islam, the tomb was not removed, as was usually the case when churches were converted to mosques.
The most interesting part of the visit was the disagreement between our Turkish guides and the Imam guiding us. Although he did not make any mention of it when we arrived, about twenty minutes into our visit he started to complain to the guides that we were being disrespectful since (A) a member of our group was using a cane, which touches the ground and is therefore unclean, and (B) the women were not wearing headscarves. When our guides explained to him (in Turkish) that we would have gladly complied with these requests had he made them before, he started shouting that they didn’t understand Islam. At this point, we left. I think the disagreement hit a nerve with both the Imam and our guides. There is a very sharp divide in this country between religious and secular people, one that becomes apparent whenever politics is discussed. It is worth noting that the discussion at the breakfast table this morning was about the arrest yesterday of about 50 current and former military officials accused of plotting a coup to overthrow the government, currently run by a democratically elected Islamic party. The military is the traditional defender of secularism in Turkey, and secularists here worry about the current government's attempts to move Turkey away from its stridently secular republican history, established by Atatürk in 1923.
We then visited the Bulgarian St. Stephen Church, otherwise known as the Iron Church. It is a typical orthodox church on the inside, but its structure is extraordinary. The church was manufactured out of prefabricated iron sections in Vienna and then shipped all the way to Istanbul! Apparently, this was a bit of a fad in the 19th century, but today it is one of the few surviving metal churches.

Our other major sight of the morning, a church, turned out to be closed. Thankfully, the restaurant we were having lunch in was next door, so we settled in. The restaurant was on a beautiful hilltop location, looking down on Istanbul’s Golden Horn, an astounding patchwork of buildings, bridges and water. I don’t think this landscape will ever start boring me; it’s just too rich.
After lunch, we had a free afternoon. Except for Krzysztof, who decided to return to the hotel, we all went down to the waterfront to catch a ferry to check out the Asian side of the city. The Anatolian part of Istanbul turned out to be very busy, dynamic and fun. Nathaniel and I took a heritage trolley (complete with dated informational plaques in German) from the harbor inland one stop and then wandered around. Something I like about this city is the large number of pedestrian streets to wander, which make for a relaxed environment and bring this huge metropolis down to a human scale. After a few hours of shopping, café-sitting and people watching, it was time to return to the hotel. We crossed back on the ferry as the sun set on another day in this magical place astride two continents.






Emily
The panoramic view of the Istanbul skyline, from the deck of the ferry to Asia, was indescribable. Seagulls were flying, encircling our boat, hoping for fish. Sunset fog blurred the lines between island and the lavender blue sky. Silhouettes of minarets rose above the architecture on the first hill. The wind whipping at the red Turkish flag, over the waves, through my hair.
I say this every day, but this was perhaps the most beautiful thing I have experienced so far here. Being able to sit and survey the city in its entirety was stunning.