Church of Saint Paraskevi, Therapeia

We are back beside the Bosphorus. Continuing our upstream progress, immediately after Nichori where the Archbishop of Constantinople s jurisdiction ceases, we come to the districts subject to the Metropolis of Derkoi which extends from the Propontis and the Bosphorus to the interior of Eastern Thrace.
Formerly the seat of the Metropolis was at Derkoi on the shores of the Black Sea and later was transferred to Therapeia.
"A pharmacy means, in the idiom of ancient Greece, a doctor's surgery'', writes Skarlatos Byzantios». Therapeia is truly a Pharmacy, named after it and dispensing free of charge ", An idyllic site with enormous trees overshadowing everything, trees that whisper in the sea breeze, it was only natural that it should have been chosen by the ruling class of Constantinople as a seaside resort. In olden days Therapeia was known as 'summertime Phanari'. The Mourouzis and Ypsilantis families had country houses here and it is here that the President of the Turkish Republic spends his summers.
The Church of Saint Paraskevi was built in 1860 by the widow of the last of the great line of Mavroyenis. It seems that the conflicting interests of her husband and a very wealthy Armenian induced him to slander the latter before the Sultan with the result that the Armenian was put to death. But in the game of power seeking there is no certainty of permanence.
When later Mavroyenis fell out of favour he too was strangled. To atone for her husband's awful crime his wife, troubled by appalling dreams, built the church close to the Aghiasma of Saint Paraskevi.
The church complex, whose caretaker now is Dimitris Konstantinidis from Xastero in Thrace, seventy-three years of age and a church warden since 1967, is entered through the huge iron courtyard door. On the right, on the walls of the monumental tomb of Th. Baltatzis are inset sculptured reliefs and Byzantine column capitals. Graves and mausoleums lie around the church starting at the southwest extremity and continuing clockwise to the north-eastern. Here the Grand Logothetis (Chief Secretary) Stavrakis Aristarchis and Pavlos G. Vegleris, Troados Neophytos and Roxandra and Smaragda Mavroyenous have been laid to rest together with members of the Psycharis and Karaitis families and of the ruling Mavrokordatos and Baltatzis families.
The church is of impressive size when one realizes that it served only a summer resort community. It is in the style of an Athonite domed basilica with 'choirs' on its north and south sides. Opposite the Metropolitan's throne is the striking if rather smaller throne of the ruler. To the left of the fine templon is immured the heart of the great benefactor G. Zarifis.
The Aghiasma is in a vaulted building which has been re-named. Formerly it was the Fount of Life and celebrated in Easter Week. This explains why there are two icons, one of the Virgin Fount of Life and one of Saint Paraskevi, together with a marble relief of a cross.

Ismini Kapandai
Churches in Constantinople
Nikos Ghinis – Constantinos Stratos