Church of Saint Phocas Mesachorou - Ortaköy

Mesachoro: an historic place. It was here that Basil the Macedonian built the renowned Monastery of Saint Phocas, a monastery razed at the time of the Fall to make way for the awesome fortress of Laimokopias (the Cutthroat), now Roumeli Hisar.
The Church of Saint Phocas is a building of 1856. An official Turkish document preserved in the church archives permits its erection by Greeks and suggests that the first church in that locality beside the Bosphorus was founded in about 1560. The same document defines the site of the burial-ground and the lands that were to belong to the church.
Enlarged in 1693, the church was destroyed by fire in 1719. A small wooden chapel was built there in 1720 and replaced by a similar structure in 1819 and finally in 1856 by the stately imposing edifice that stands there today. It should be noted that the first congregation of this impressive church consisted of poor people: farmers, market gardeners, fishermen and boatmen, in some respect cut off from the outside world. Now Mesachoro has grown into a rich suburb, chock-a-block with bars and fashionable night clubs frequented by the youth of the City.
It is regrettable that many of these places have been positioned against the sides of the church and have damaged its walls, as may be seen in the photographs.
The Aghiasma of Saint Phocas used to be in an underground chamber next to the Jewish synagogue but is now sealed up.
In the cemetery there is the Church of Saint George, built in 1838 with the imperial sanction of Sultan Mehmet II. According to a publication by N. Atzemoglou there is a vaulted underground chapel beneath the church and still lower down, at a depth of eight metres, is an Aghiasma which Skarlatos Byzantios maintains is Byzantine.

Ismini Kapandai
Churches in Constantinople
Nikos Ghinis – Constantinos Stratos