In Istanbul, even those leading the liturgy are protesting. On Friday 2 August, roughly 25 people met up in the historic Russian chapel of St. Elias in the Turkish capital to hold a liturgy celebrating the prophet’s feastday, which falls on 20 July in the Julian calendar.
However, the chapel of St. Elias, nestled away in the loft of a building where monks used to live in years gone by, no longer holds regular services.
Nevertheless, it would seem that Istanbul’s Russian community would like to put it back in use.
However, the chapel could be demolished along with the rest of the building, although the demolition itself has been suspended for the time being.
The details are that Istanbul’s three Russian chapels have specific ethnic connections, all being linked to the small community of “White Russians”, the age-old name used to refer to the inhabitants of modern-day Belarus.
The chapel of Saint Elias is, in actual fact, linked to the other two Russian chapels in Istanbul, all of which are property of the Saint Panteleimon monastery on Mount Athos, but run by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Furthermore, St. Elias is the oldest Russian place of worship in Istanbul, the style of which is typical of the 19th century.
Built 134 years ago, it was also the exiles’ main church following the October Revolution of 1917. The chapel is also home to frescoes, icons and a wooden iconostasis, although precious little remains of the frescoes because of the humidity, except for a crucifix and an image of Christ near the altar as a result of the humidity.
The planned restoration work would cost roughly 100,000 Turkish lira, according to Kazmir Pamir, spokesperson for the White Russians’ PAE Fukaraperver Association, who spoke with Hürriyet Daily News.
As for the Athonite monks, they have handed the affair over to a Turkish company for them to deal with.
“But we don’t know what projects this Turkish firm has in mind for the buildings, especially since property prices are continually rising”, said Kazmir Pamir.
“Today’s work is the first step in rebuilding the former spirit of this church”, said Pamir. “We are thinking of having a baptism or wedding here. The church is still alive, this is indeed its first breath of life”, he added.
Kazmir Pamir also explained that the chapel of St. Elias has been in danger for some time because it is no longer in use. Furthermore, in the official records it appears as a business premises. And indeed, in the other parts of the building, commercial activities do take place nowadays.
The chapel of St. Elias could therefore become, like countless others, yet another victim of the building boom which is sweeping over the Turkish capital.
In this case, the building project looming threateningly over the chapel is Galataport, which is to overhaul the historic neighbourhood of Karaköy, perched uphill from the European banks of the Bosphorus.
The project includes the building of a tourist port (with the privatisation of the current Salipazari port), hotels and a shopping mall.
Dogus Holding, a company which has vested interests in the banking, construction and telecommunications sectors, won the tender for the Galataport development project last May for the sum of 702 million dollars.
This project adds to the list of countless other government projects redesigning Istanbul in order to draw in more tourists, to provide the city with large infrastructure projects and to bring about a “new Islamisation” of the city. It was these very projects which sparked off the protests against Prime Minister Erdogan last May. Back then, the area under threat was the Gezi park by Taksim Square.
The voices that were raised in protest said that these development projects threaten historic heritage and the environment, but the government fights back saying that they are necessary given the demographic expansion and persistent economic growth that the city is witnessing.
The protest to defend the chapel of St. Elias could ultimately bring the Moscow Patriarchate and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople closer together, the latter with only 3,000 followers. Indeed, a sign of this rapprochement was the fact that last Friday’s liturgy was presided over by a Greek member of the clergy.
The “Russian Church”, as Kazmir Pamir pointed out, “recognises the authority that Patriarch Bartholemew has over the chapel in Karaköy”.