Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church

I spent most of the previous day in a bus. I was in a bus from Istanbul to Denizli in the morning and I took another bus back to Istanbul in the afternoon. While I wasn’t exactly doing much on the bus, it was still exhausting no matter which way you put it. Unfortunately, the trains have stopped by the time the bus got back to Istanbul so I was forced to take an expensive taxi ride back to the hotel which was, apparently, some distance away from the bus station. Needless to say, I slept well that night since I wasn’t able to sleep much on the bus.

The following day, I started a little later. I think I will be spending my time here in Istanbul just to recover from yesterday. There are numerous places to see in Istanbul and just spending five days here would not do it justice. I was walking around the Taksim Square area and I ended up seeing another church. I know that Türkiye is majority Muslim, but it also has religious tolerance. This isn’t just a modern thing and you can even see it in architecture. Even the Ottomans supported religious tolerance. Basically, the idea is you can do whatever you want as long as you are loyal to the sultan.

The church in question here is the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church. This church was built in the nineteenth century and it is considered to be the largest Greek Orthodox church is Istanbul. From where I was, the church didn’t seem to be very large. However, there is actually more to it than the facade. The architectural style here is a bit mixed with the facade having these straight lines but behind that are domes and arches which can be found in basilicas. The dome here in the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church is the first one allowed to be built for a Christian church after the fall of Constantinople. This was done as part of the whole policy of religious tolerance by the Ottomans at that time.

[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/HolyTrinityOrthodoxChurch.kmz} zoom=19]