Tekfursaray / Τεκφούρ σαράι

Updated: Aug 20, 2024

North façade of Tekfur Sarayı, photographed by Nicholas V. Artamonoff between 1936 and 1945 (Source: Harvard Digital Collections).

Tekfursaray is on the northwest of the historical peninsula and adjacent to the land walls in the area surrounding Tekfur Sarayı, a Byzantine palace that housed emperors starting in the twelfth century. Tekfur Sarayı was built as part of the Blachernae Palace complex, but it later formed its own religious community and shaped the neighborhood we know today as Tekfursaray (Τεκφούρ σαράι, Tekfoursaráy). The name of the neighborhood comes directly from the palace, which is believed to have gotten its name from the word “takavor,” Armenian for emperor. Although the palace was renamed in the sixteenth century as Constantine Palace after Constantine Palaiologos and later as the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus, the name of the neighborhood remained the same.

Jewish settlements near Tekfur Sarayı (Source: Harvard Digital Collections).

Following the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi recorded that Jewish congregations from Thessaloniki were settled in the area by the Ottomans, indicating that Greek Orthodox settlers were not always the majority in the neighborhood. The Kastorya Synagogue that is thought to have been built during the reign of Mehmed II (1444 to 1446 and 1451 to 1481) is also evidence of the presence of a Jewish community.

The neighborhood does not survive in the modern municipal map of Istanbul, but is still present in the urban understanding of locals. The district of the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus is often referred to as “Tekfursaray” even though it legally falls within the borders of “Ayvansaray.”

Palace of the Porphyrogenitus

Palace of the Porphyrogenitus (τὸ Παλάτι τοῦ Πορφυρογέννητου, tó Palátion toú Porfyrogénnitou, Tekfur Sarayı) is recorded under many different names; nineteenth century Greek scholar Skarlatos Byzantios names the palace as Theotokos Ta Kyrou and alternatively as Platytera tōn Ouranōn. He also mentions that the Greek Ta Kyrou has been “corrupted by the Turks as ‘Tekir’” in an effort to associate foreign names with words already extant in the Turkish language, and that therefore, the palace is also called Tekir Saray.

Tekfur Sarayı, photographed by Ali Saim Ülgen, issued on July 16, 1949 (Source: Salt Research).

As the only surviving palace from the Blachernae complex, Tekfur Sarayı now welcomes visitors in its renovated form, which has been turned into a museum. In the past few centuries, though, it has taken on various different functions before settling as a museum. After the fall of Constantinople, the palace was used as a workshop for traditional Turkish tiles (çini) in the eighteenth century and as a glass atelier in the nineteenth century before it succumbed to a fire in 1864.

Tekfur Sarayı Museum (Source: www.tekfursarayi.istanbul/tr/galeri)

In the early twenty-first century, restoration works in the palace received public attention and criticism for not maintaining the historical texture of the building. The final result is seen by modern scholars as a remarkably different Byzantine-style building, far from a conserved and restored palace from the Byzantine era. Since 2014, Tekfur Sarayı in its new form has been displaying mosaics, tiles, and other artifacts representing the rich cultural heritage that once originated inside the same walls.

Church of Panagia (Παναγία Χαντζεργιώτισσα, Hançerli Panyia Kilisesi)

Commonly known as the Panagia Church, this Greek Orthodox parish church was first mentioned in an Ottoman source in 1648 and was first formally recorded in a list by Thomas Smith as Panagia Hançeriotissa in 1669. Accounts of earlier visits to the church exist, though no known formal record remains. Scholars have viewed the existence of the adjacent Holy Spring of Saint Paraskevi (Αγία Παρασκευή) as an indication of the presence of the church in the Byzantine era.

Entrance of the church. (Photographed by Aimee Genell in 2024)

In the eighteenth century, the church was rebuilt following a fire that destroyed twelve churches in the surrounding areas. There it is recorded as the Church of the Virgin Mary (Εκκλησία της Παναγίας, Ekklisía tis Panagías), leading to the multiple names the church was known by in the following centuries. An inscription on the church walls indicates that the church was rebuilt by the Eskiciler Loncası (Guild of Junk Dealers) in 1837, though the reason for the destruction is unknown. Panagia Hançeriotissa remains active today, although the Greek Orthodox presence in the neighborhood has notably decreased since the nineteenth century.