Church of Saint Benoit

Saint Benoit is a Roman Catholic Church in Istanbul, Turkey. It is important for historical reasons because it is the oldest Catholic church of Istanbul still in use.

In 1427, Benedictine friar Dom Nicolas Meynet, together with friars from Genoa founded a monastery in Constantinople, on the southeastern slope of the Galata hill. The Genoese had since a few years enlarged for the sixth and last time the wall which protected their Peyre Galata citadel, and the monastery was built just inside the new ramparts.

In 1453, shortly before the Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople, the friars sent all the relics and the religious ornaments of their church to Chios and then to Genoa, to rescue them from the impending Ottoman attack.

Ottoman Age

After 1478, the community was repeatedly shuttered by fights among friars, until Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent menaced to convert the building into a mosque for the Moors who, expelled in those years from Spain, were resettling in Galata. Thanks to the intercession of King Francois I of France, the friars could remain in the complex, which became the Royal chapel of the Ambassador of France at the Porte.

The shrine burned several times: after the first fire in 1610, it was restored by a Venetian and French endowment. St. Benoit was the only church to be spared by the great fire of Galata of 1660, but the monastery in that occasion was damaged and plundered. The church suffered from fires many times during the 17th-19th centuries.

Architecture and interior

The church, accessed via a staircase from Kemeraltı Caddesi, sits on a terrace possibly linked to a former Byzantine cistern. During the Ottoman era, it became a fruit garden known as Çukurbostan ('Hollow Garden').

Originally, the three-naved church had one dome, an atrium, a gallery, and mosaics depicting Christ’s life. Built with alternating stone and brick layers, its naves are covered by groin vaults. The main and south naves date from a 1752 restoration, while the north nave was added in 1871. Small domed chambers at the east end may include remnants of an earlier Byzantine church.

The entrance portal and square bell tower, once a watchtower, date to the 15th century. Inside, gravestones from the 17th and 18th centuries honor Levantine families, benefactors, and French ambassadors. Croatian noblewoman Jelena Zrinska and her son, Hungarian aristocrat Francis II Rákóczi, were buried here in exile.

Address
Kemeraltı Caddesi No:24, Istanbul, Turkey

Established
1427