Remaining Churches

he only church that has remained in the hands of the Greeks since the Byzantine period is the late 13th century church of Panagia Muhliotissa, which stands on the high ground of the Fener district.

The cloverleaf plan of this building shows that it could be a late Roman burial place. However, a large part of it was demolished in a later period and new elements were added, which makes it extremely difficult to guess the original shape of the building. The church of the Peribleptos Monastery, built by Emperor Romanos Argyros III (1028-1034) in the Samatya district in the 11th century was handed over to the Armenian community after the Ottoman conquest.

Various changes were made in the course of time and after a fire which broke out in the 1870's it was completely demolished and the present-day church of Sulumanastır Surp Kevork was built. In the Dragman neighbourhood of the Edirnekapı district is the Chapel of Saint Nicholas. This was the private chapel of the palace of the Moldavian Voivodas. This small building, known as the Boğdan Palace Chapel, has been turned into a shanty dwelling and thus destroyed. All of the Greek churches of today were built after the Ottoman conquest, although some of them stand on land belonging to older churches.