Corresponding to the Byzantine-era neighborhood of Deuteron, the neighborhood of Edirnekapı is named after the Edirne Gate—also known as the Gate of Adrianople—one of the gates on the Theodosian Walls that still borders the neighborhood. The connection with Adrianople (Edine) comes from the common route that took travelers from Constantinople to Adrianople, according to nineteenth-century Greek scholar Skarlatos Byzantios.
Edirnekapı appears notable for retaining substantial religious diversity starting from the sixteenth century, until the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923 led to a significant decrease in the Greek Orthodox community. For example, in the sixteenth century both the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque and the Hagios Georgios Greek Orthodox Church thrived with their own communities, just across the street from each other. In the seventeenth century, at least one traveler recorded substantial Armenian, Greek Orthodox, and Muslim populations coexisting in the neighborhood. Even after the mass deportations of the Greek Orthodox to Greece, and Muslims to Turkey, a smaller minority still continued to reside in Edirnekapı until the pogroms against Greek Orthodox people in 1955. Today, the population of the neighborhood is predominantly Muslim.
Religious diversity in Edirnekapı was matched by diversity in its socioeconomic demographics and its land-use typologies. The customs house of Karagümrük became a major center for trading goods within and beyond the city. Many Greek Orthodox residents of the neighborhood owned windmills, whereas flour-makers’, millers’, bakers’ guilds patronized local churches and community institutions. Edirnekapı also became the major center of slaughterhouses and butcheries within the city alongside the neighborhood of Yedikule. In addition to these state-sanctioned activities, Edirnekapı’s popular culture and classes were not always in compliance with the state; during the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries illegal slaughterhouses thrived throughout the neighborhood and many began illegally living or collecting wood and stone in areas outside the city walls. The Greek Orthodox inhabitants of the neighborhood who were partaking in these activities also gathered in the parish of Hagios Georgios.
Hagios Georgios Greek Orthodox Church
The Hagios Georgios Greek Orthodox Church was originally built by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine V in the eighth century on the lot that now houses the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque. In the mid-sixteenth century, the mosque was built on the site, and Hagios Georgios was rebuilt where it currently stands—just across the street from the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque—in the third quarter of the sixteenth century. The construction must have been completed before 1583 as the church was cataloged in the Tryphon List from that year. An inscription in the church mentions a restoration in 1726 due to damage from a fire that broke out in 1662, and the last restoration work on the church was completed in 1836.
References
Akyazıcı Özkoçak, Selma. “Two Urban Districts in Early Modern Istanbul: Edirnekapı and
Yedikule.” Urban History 30, no. 1 (2003): 26–43.
Byzantios, Skarlatos. Constantinople: A Topographical, Archaeological & Historical
Description Vol. 1. Translated by Haris Rigas. Istanbul: İstos yayın, 2019.
Çelebi Kömürciyan, Eremya. İstanbul Tarihi: XVII. Asırda İstanbul. Translated by Hrand D.
Andreasyan. İstanbul: Eren, 1988.
“İstanbul Surları.” İstanbul Surları.
Karaca, Zafer. İstanbul’da Tanzimat Öncesi Rum Ortodoks Kiliseleri. Istanbul: Yapı
Kredi Yayınları, 2008.
Konstantina, Andrianopoulou. "Edirne Kapu." Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World,
Osmanoğlu, Özlem. “İstanbul Rum-Ortodoks Kiliselerinde Epitafion İşlemeleri ve
İkonografileri.” MA Thesis, Işık University, 2018.
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