At the Church of St. George in Istanbul, Orthodox Christians display legacy of ancient city

Throughout Istanbul, the adhan – or Muslim call to prayer – booms five times a day from mosques around the city.

But in Fener, a small quarter that slopes upward in the city’s ancient Fatih district, a different kind of call is audible.

The neighborhood is home to the Church of St. George, an unassuming structure with a neoclassical facade rising no more than 50 feet from the stone street it sits on. From the outside, it wouldn’t look out of place in State College.

To more than 250 million Orthodox Christians, however, the church holds immense importance. It is home to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, a church recognized as “primer inter pares” – first among equals – by broader Orthodoxy. It is also the home church for the Patriarch of Constantinople, currently Bartholomew I.

With its many churches, Orthodoxy is the third largest branch of Christianity and remains a highly relevant part of life in eastern and southern Europe and throughout the world.

For those more familiar with Roman Catholicism, the Church of St. George is somewhat analogous to St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City and its patriarch to the pope.

The Church of St. George is a vestige of Istanbul’s past as a center of Christianity and a site of pilgrimage for the modern faithful.

Although I am not Orthodox, I visited the church for its Sunday morning divine liturgy, a tradition held in the city since its foundation in 330 CE.

The Fener neighborhood is also an historically Greek zone of the city, though this is generally invisible outside of the church and a nearby Orthodox school. The local cafes serve Turkish coffee rather than “Greek coffee,” and food stands offer döner kebabs – a Turkish meat dish – instead of gyros, its Greek counterpart.

But stepping into St. George’s, things became firmly Hellenic.

The modest exterior of the church gives way to a marvelous wall of gold and icons of holy figures. Grand chandeliers illuminate stone columns,velvet-lined chairs, and black robed figures with caps. Every inch of the church emanates grandeur and solemnity. I found my seat in the back as the figures began to chant in Greek.

Admittedly, I know very little of the language, and I was unsure of the structure of an Orthodox service. But I needed neither tongue nor tradition to appreciate the beauty of the voices echoing through the church.

For more than two hours, I basked in an ancient and unknown culture and tried to follow the lead of those around me.

Throughout the service, many approached an elderly robed priest to kneel and kiss his ring. There were inconsistent intervals of upright worship and seated attention. Though I heard many worshippers whisper in Greek, many others seemed to communicate in Russian.

These two groups, though they peacefully co-worshiped at the patriarchate, are at the center of a current schism in Orthodoxy. The Russian Orthodox Church – the largest church in Orthodoxy by far – severed its communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2018 over Constantinople’s intentions to recognize an independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

The Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill I, serves as a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has supported his invasion of Ukraine. Since 2018, he has forbidden members of the Russian Orthodox Church to take part in communion, baptism or marriages conducted by the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

But when two priests cloaked in golden robes emerged from a room beyond the church’s gilded wall, Greeks, Russians and others rose and continually signed themselves all the same. In the middle of the liturgy, one priest scaled a column to reach a pulpit where he sang the gospel in a deep baritone.

Knowing the term from Catholic mass, the repeated chanting of “Kyrie Eleison” – Lord Have Mercy – provided some comfort in the unwieldy experience. And some thundering “hallelujahs” resonated in my otherwise disoriented ears.

Just as the liturgy ended and before my aching legs gave out, a new man emerged from beyond the wall of gold. He wore all black aside from a gold necklace and thinning white beard.

Worshippers bowed their heads as he tottered toward the congregation. It was the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, one of the most influential religious leaders in the world.

The Patriarch offered a hushed speech in Greek. I didn’t understand a word.

His gentle tone, however, seemed to deeply affect some of those around me, many nodding their heads and others appearing to pray. I was just happy to be so close to the man.

Orthodox or not, there is beauty in the Church of St. George – in its traditions, on its walls, and among its many pilgrims.