IDENTITY AND STYLE: ARMENIAN-OTTOMAN CHURCHES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

This is a digital offprint for restricted use only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV

Sacred PrecinctsThe Religious Architecture of Non-Muslim

Communities across the Islamic World

Edited by

Mohammad Gharipour

LEIDEN | BOSTON


Contents

PrefaceNon-Muslim Sacred Sites in the Muslim World xi

Acknowledgements xxviList of Figures xxviiAbout the Contributors xxxiv

Introduction 1Mohammad Gharipour

PART 1Identity

1 Churches Attracting MosquesReligious Architecture in Early Islamic Syria 11

Mattia Guidetti

2 To Condone or to Contest?Ethnic Identity and Religious Architecture in The Gambia 28

Steven Thomson

3 JigoThe Essence of the Non-Tangible Architecture of the Hausa Traditional Religion 43

A.A. Muhammad-Oumar

4 Muslims Viewed as ‘Non-Muslims’The Alevi Precincts of Anatolia 57

Angela Andersen

5 Identity and StyleArmenian-Ottoman Churches in the Nineteenth Century 76

Alyson Wharton

6 Apportioning Sacred Space in a Moroccan CityThe Case of Tangier, 1860–1912 106

Susan Gilson Miller

7 Politics of Place in the Middle East and World Heritage Status for Jerusalem 123Elvan Cobb


viii CONTENTS

PART 2Design

8 Devotional and Artistic Responses to Contested Space in Old CairoThe Case of Al-Muʿallaqah 143

Erin Maglaque

9 Sacred GeometriesThe Dynamics of ‘Islamic’ Ornament in Jewish and Coptic Old Cairo 158

Ann Shafer

10 Synagogues of IsfahanThe Architecture of Resignation and Integration 178

Mohammad Gharipour and Rafael Sedighpour

11 Gothic PortabilityThe Crimean Memorial Church, Istanbul and the Threshold of Empire 203

Ayla Lepine

12 A Catholic Church in an Islamic CapitalHistoricism and Modernity in the St Antoine Church 219

Ebru Özeke Tökmeci

13 Cultural HorizontalityAuguste Perret in the Middle East 240

Karla Cavarra Britton

PART 3Construction

14 Through a Glass BrightlyChristian Communities in Palestine and Arabia During the Early Islamic Period 259

Karen C. Britt

15 The Miracle of MuqattamMoving a Mountain to Build a Church in Fatimid Egypt 277

Jennifer Pruitt

16 The Catholic Consecration of an Islamic HouseThe St John de Matha Trinitarian Hospital in Tunis 291

Clara Ilham Álvarez Dopico

17 Armenian Merchant Patronage of New Julfa’s Sacred Spaces 308Amy Landau and Theo Maarten van Lint


ix CONTENTS

18 The Tofre Begadim Synagogue and the Non-Muslim Policy of the Late Ottoman Empire 334Meltem Özkan Altınöz

19 (Re)Creating a Christian Image AbroadThe Catholic Cathedrals of Protectorate-Era Tunis 353

Daniel E. Coslett

PART 4Re-use

20 Khidr and the Politics of Translation in MosulMar Behnam, St George and Khidr Ilyas 379

Ethel Sara Wolper

21 Muslim Influences in Post-Arab MaltaThe Hal Millieri Church 393

David Mallia

22 St Sophia in Nicosia, CyprusFrom a Lusignan Cathedral to an Ottoman Mosque 415

Suna Guven

23 MaribayasaNegotiating Gold, Spirits and Islamic Renewal in a Malian Islamic Borderland 431

Esther Kuhn

24 Building as PropagandaA Palimpsest of Faith and Power in the Maghreb 445

Jorge Correia

25 The Cathedral of Ani, TurkeyFrom Church to Monument 460

Heghnar Z. Watenpaugh

Glossary 475Bibliography 487Index 532


1 Bruce Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World. The Roots of Sectarianism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 73. Simeon Polonyalı, Polonyalı Simeonʾun seyahatnamesi (The Travelogue of Simeon of Poland) 1608–1619, transl. Hrand Andreasyan (Istanbul, 1964), 134–5.

2 British National Archives/pro, Foreign Office Papers, fo 78/1538, British Consulate, Aleppo, August 4, 1860, no. 27 to Bulwer, 250.

3 Bruce Masters deals with the national history that has dominated the historiography of the Arab Provinces. Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World, 1–15. Gerard J. Libaridian has asserted that the Armenian historiography has focused on “cultural self-preservation, collective memory and a denied history” and understated social, cultural and political differences in the nineteenth-century Armenian Community for fear that this might undermine the Turkish–Armenian conflict that culminated in the events of 1915. Gerard Libaridian, Modern Armenia: People, Nation, State (New Brunswick, nj: Transaction Publishers, 2004), 6.

4 Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990/1992), 69–70.

chapter 5

Identity and StyleArmenian-Ottoman Churches in the Nineteenth Century

Alyson Wharton

In theory, before the nineteenth-century reforms known as Tanzimat (lit. the re-organizations) new churches could not be built in Ottoman domains. This was stipulated by the ‘Pact of ʿUmar’ which had governed relations between Muslims and non-Muslims since the time of Caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab (634–44). These conditions could be circumvented: the Church of the Forty Martyrs in Aleppo, for instance, was built in 1616 following a substantial gift to the Ottoman authorities.1 However, gaining permission for churches to be rebuilt was arduous and the proposed structures were monitored so that they could not be changed in any way. The Tanzimat bills of 1839 and 1856, which proclaimed the equality of all Ottoman sub-jects and modified many of the terms of the Pact of ʿUmar, heralded the removal of obstacles to church building. Following this, an unprecedented amount of church-building activity took place and a British consular document from 1860 states that the con-struction of churches in the region of Aleppo was possible “without the least opposition or difficulty.”2

Nineteenth-century church-building projects offered a unique opportunity for the Armenian Community to construct a new image promul-gated through the built environment. This chapter looks to examples from the Ottoman capital of

Constantinople prior to the reform period, sub-sequently moving to investigate cases from the southeastern cities of Gaziantep (Antep) and Diyarbakır towards the end of the century, in order to identify this new image, how it changed over time and who was responsible.

Since the nineteenth century is predominantly associated with the ‘rise of nationalism’ amongst the subject peoples of the empire,3 the chapter explores the relationship of the style of these works to historic Armenian Church models, as well as churches subsequently built outside of Ottoman domains. Through doing this, it demonstrates that, whereas churches built in Constantinople include the westernized decorative vocabulary of the imperial works of the Ottoman sultans of the early Tanzimat, those from the southeast make ref-erence to the much earlier architectural and deco-rative traditions of the region. It is emphasized that none of these new material identities seen in these churches, whether the westernized exam-ples from Constantinople or the localized examples from the southeast, were proto-national4 in any

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77Identity and Style: ��th Century Armenian-Ottoman Churches

8 Donald Preziosi, Architecture, Language and Meaning: The Origins of the Built World (The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton Publishers, 1979), 4.

5 Jessica Evans, “Introduction” in Representing the Nation: A Reader. Histories, Heritage and Museums, eds. David Boswell and Jessica Evans (London: Routledge, 1999), 2. The imagining of nations refers to: Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983/1991) and Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (London: cup, 1983). Both of these works empha-size the use of ceremonies, museums, architecture and other methods to encourage a sense of national commu-nity. This chapter indicates at a more organic development at local level.

6 Christina Maranci, Medieval Armenian Architecture. Constructions of Race and Nation (Leuven: Peeters, Hebrew University Armenian Studies 2, 2001).

7 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Postcolonial Studies Reader, eds. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin (Oxford and New York: Routledge, 1995/2006), 36. Footnote 6 refers to the original quote from Emily Apter, “French Colonial Studies and Postcolonial Theory”, Sub-Stance 76/7, 24, 1–2 (1995): 178.

way: they did not have any strong likeness to fea-tures of historic Armenian architecture. They can-not be associated with the later developments that saw the imagining of nations “in a particular and selective style”,5 including the homogenous vision of Armenian architecture that proliferated from the early twentieth century.6 Instead, both the churches built in the Ottoman capital and in the southeastern provinces have a stronger relationship to Muslim architecture in their immediate surroundings than to historic Armenian models.

The considerable overlap in styles between Christian and Muslim buildings identified in this chapter does not show the Armenian Community being “force-fed into appropriating the master’s culture”.7 Instead, this close connection between mosques, mausoleums and churches reflects the principal role of Armenian architects at this time. These architects had a considerable degree of per-sonal power that allowed them to apply their new decorative styles, as well as architectural compo-nents, to their works for the Armenian Community as well as for their sultan-patrons. Through look-ing to evidence concerning the education of these architects, this chapter explains how these styles

were created, what they meant, and how their architects managed to achieve such dominance over Ottoman nineteenth- century architecture.

The vision of the architect, as this chapter shows, did not necessarily coincide with that of the patron: Armenian textual sources regarding the building of a cathedral in Antep illustrate how the mean-ing of the work according to the patron may have even contrasted with that of the architect. Lastly, the chapter moves on to explore the issue of the connotations of the new material image according to local observers. British consular documentation sheds light on the social contexts in which the churches were built and gives some indications of how the style of these works could have been viewed by inhabitants of that particular city, both Muslim and non-Muslim.

The material evidence of the church buildings provides the focus of the chapter. As art theorists such as Donald Preziosi have argued, the built environment can be read as a valuable source of nonverbal communication. The ‘architectonic code’ consists of “a set of place-making orderings whereby individuals construct and communi-cate a conceptual world through the use of pal-pable distinctions in formation addressed to the visual channel.”8 The elements of this architec-tonic system are chosen on some level and com-municate messages related to “most centrally, the transmission of information regarding the per-ception of similarities and differences.” Therefore, the chapter proceeds by analyzing the Armenian churches for their choices of materials, plans, decorative motifs and styles, inscription content, and site, for instance. Since these choices have been selected from a large range of potential mod-els including Ottoman, Armenian, and Artukid, their features are scrutinized for their messages concerning both their addresser(s) and their addressee(s).


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11 Vincent Lima, “The Evolving Goals and Strategies of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation 1890–1925”, Armenian Review 44, no. 2/174 (1991), vii.

12 Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World, 75.

13 Richard G. Hovannisian, “Chapter One. Armenian Tigranakert/Diarbekir and Edessa/Urfa,” in Armenian Tigranakert/Diarbekir and Edessa/Urfa, ed. Richard G Hovannisian (Costa Mesa, ca: Mazda, 2006), 4.

14 Libaridian, Modern Armenia, 1–18.

9 See the maps published in Halil Inalcık and Donald Quataert, eds., An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, Volume ii, 1600–1914 (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1994), xxix ff. On the events of 1915: Raymond Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide. A Complete History (London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011) and Taner Akçam, A Shameful Act. The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility (London: Constable & Robinson, 1999/ 2006).

10 Hagop Levon Barsoumian, The Armenian Amira Class of Istanbul (Yerevan: American University of Armenia Press, 2007), 45.

1 The Chronological, Geographical and Cultural Contexts

The Ottoman Empire in 1800 encompassed cities as diverse as Budapest, Salonika, Tunis, and Baghdad, with heterogeneous subjects that included Chris-tians of various denominations. By 1900, several of the European territories had become vassal states or independent territories, but within the Anatolian core there remained a sizeable Armenian popula-tion until 1915.9 This Armenian Community under-went several notable changes in the nineteenth century. The most significant structural reorganiza-tions included the creation of a formal administra-tive unit, known as the millet, under the authority of the Armenian Patriarchate in Constantinople and encompassing a lay council. In 1863 the com-munity was allowed by the State to issue its own communal-political regulations, known to Arme-nians as the Constitution.

The social transformations of the community included, first of all, the dominance of a group of wealthy bankers, industrialists, and State servants known as the amiras (from the Arabic emir, mean-ing commander). They controlled communal affairs, even including running the Patriarchate, until the 1840s. They were adverse to political reform, and intent on protecting their own position. Although they had close links to the sultan and influential pashas, the amiras are not viewed to have pos-sessed any power of their own outside the com-munity.10 From the middle of the century, the next generation of Armenians was sent to Europe for

their education and exposed to revolutionary Paris. Upon their return, they were involved in drawing up the Constitution.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, some Armenians became radicalized and joined political parties. This was the result of hardships that Armenians experienced in their daily lives, such as the insecurity of their land at the hands of Kurdish marauders in the southeastern provinces. Although these ‘Armenian revolutionaries’ were working, above all, for an improvement in living conditions,11 Armenians were viewed as ‘plotters’ and treated with great suspicion by the State from the 1890s. In the capital, but especially in the cities of Anatolia, there were conversions to Catholicism and Protestantism, linked to the activities of mis-sionaries, who built new churches alongside schools offering a Western education. Such conversions were associated with trade opportunities,12 and were an alternative to forced Islamization in some regions.13

During the latter half of the nineteenth century there was a widening split between the elites of the capital and the provinces of Anatolia. The amiras, as well as the subsequent liberal elites, of Constantinople were portrayed as incapable of car-rying out genuine reform that would benefit the livelihoods of the Anatolians. This distance was encouraged by the activities of the political par-ties—the Hunchaks and Tashnaks—which were focused on the provinces.14

The vision of the Armenian communities pre-sented by churches built in the nineteenth cen-tury contrasts with this story of the alienation of Armenians from their Ottoman identity, and the



spotlight on their clandestine separatist activi-ties provided by textual accounts. Instead these churches show how, even into the turbulent years of the 1890s, the material identity of these Arme-nians expressed through their architecture had a high degree of continuity with the recent works associated with their imperial masters and their Muslim neighbors. This continuity does not show the appropriation of the ‘master’s culture’ out of subservience or fear but instead it reflects the agency of Armenians as leading figures both in the creation of these styles and in their application in the capital and the provinces.

2 The Image of the Armenians of Constantinople: Surp Haç (1829) and Surp Asdvadzadzin (1838)

Before the middle of the nineteenth century, Armenian churches in Constantinople tended to be rebuilt Byzantine structures, and for this reason they most often followed the basilica plan. Accord-ing to the controls over non-Muslim activities in the pre-Tanzimat period, and the specifications of documents that issued permissions for rebuild-ing works, these structures were not allowed to be changed ‘in any shape or form’. A site and building plan was issued by the State following its grant-ing permission to rebuild the Surp Haç Church in the İcadiye neighborhood of the Üsküdar suburb (in Istanbul), dated to 1829 (Figure 5.1). This plan shows that the State specified and controlled not only the structures but also details such as the roofing arrangement. Under this degree of super-vision, the churches built at this time relied upon moveable paintings, textiles, and vestments for the expression of communal identity.15

The majority of the Armenian churches of Constantinople were rebuilt in the following dec-ade of 1830s to ’40s, which marked the height of the power of the amiras. Through their connec-tions at the Sultan’s court, the amiras managed to gain permission for these churches to be rebuilt. Some amiras, of particularly high status, obtained special privileges allowing changes to the architec-tural features of their churches. For instance, the imperial architect Karapet Amira Balyan (1800–66) is thought to have won an imperial decree from Sultan Mahmud ii allowing Surp Asdvadzadzin in the suburb of Beşiktaş (in Istanbul), rebuilt in 1838 (Figure 5.2), to be endowed with a dome, when these were usually prohibited for non-Muslim buildings.16

Despite this apparent breaking of the codes of decorum that governed both Ottoman architec-ture (within which certain kinds of patrons were allowed certain architectural and decorative fea-tures) and the public expression of non-Muslim identity, there is some indication that there were still limits on what could be done with the exter-nal appearances of these churches. The structures continue to appear austere and simple from the street: they are hidden behind large walls, and they all adhere to a generic façade arrangement. One archival document includes not only a plan but a drawing that specifies the appearance for the façade of the Surp Krikor Lusavoriç Church, con-structed in the suburb of Kuzguncuk in 1861. This design indicates that these austere façades may have been proscribed by the State well into the Tanzimat period.17 Also showing that these struc-tures were not envisaged to be expressions of ascend ant status or identity from the exterior is that fact that even the sultan-sanctioned dome of the Surp Asdvadzadzin Church of Karapet Balyan is invisible from the street, concealed by a gabled roof.

16 Pars Tuğlacı, The Role of the Balyan Family in Ottoman Architecture (Istanbul: Yeni Çığır Bookstore, 1990), 282.

17 Osmanlı Başbakanlık Arşivi/bbk (Ottoman Prime Minis try Archives), I.hr, Dosya:182, Gömlek:10119, 1277/1861.S.10. Document dated 1861 concerning the church being built in Kuzguncuk.

15 Ronald T. Marchese, Marlene R. Brev, and the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul, Splendor & Pageantry. Textile Treasures from the Armenian Orthodox Churches of Istanbul (Istanbul: Çitlembik Film Video Yapım Çeviri, 2010).


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These churches of Constantinople are remark-able because of their distance from the typical conception of Armenian architecture, dominated by medieval forms.18 They do not include the iconic centrally-planned structure with conical dome, which had been a mainstay of historic Arme nian architecture, whether at Etchmiadzin, Akhtamar in Lake Van, or in the diaspora in Madras/Chennai, or New Julfa in Iran.

The absence of the centrally-planned struc-ture with conical dome in Constantinople can be explained by the fact that these churches were rebuilds of Byzantine plans, and the State specified that these could not be changed. However, such types were also not used in the post-Tanzimat period when there were greater freedoms regarding archi-tectural expression. Colossal Greek churches with soaring domes built towards the end of the century in Constantinople reflect this post-Tanzimat state of affairs. However, the centrally-planned conically-domed structure was still not chosen by Armenians.19

19 An exception is Surp Krikor Lusavoriç Church in Karaköy in Istanbul, which has a conical dome. Tuğlacı

18 Maranci, Medieval Armenian Architecture. Maranci stresses the construction of this image by art historians such as Jozef Strzygowski (1862–1941) who promoted their racially exclusive view of Armenian architecture as an Eastern type not a Mediterranean one.

Figure 5.� Surp Haç/Holy Cross Gregorian Armenian Church, İcadiye Neighborhood, Üsküdar, Istanbul. Plan issued by the Ottoman State for the building of the church in 1829.Ottoman Prime Ministry Archive, Istanbul, hat 0775/��55



This reticence to look to Armenian models in Constantinople is especially striking in contrast with the popularity of medieval-Armenian tem-plates in the diaspora. From Paris at the turn of the twentieth century (most notably the Church of St John the Baptist, built 1902), to present-day Armenia, Lebanon, and usa, the model of Armen-ian medieval historicism has remained immoveable. The once-hybrid identity of Armenian architec-ture has been replaced by an unchanging image that looks to an idealized golden age of Armenian artistic creativity.

Instead of a relationship with Armenian mod-els, the Constantinopolitan Armenian churches from the Ottoman period show numerous over-laps with contemporary imperial works. The stylis-tic convergence with the imperial works of the Ottoman-Muslim sultan included both formal and structural features. The example of the Surp Asdvadzadzin Church in Beşiktaş, built by imperial architect Karapet Balyan in 1838, provides the most striking parallels.

The dome of the Beşiktaş Church, despite being a blind dome that is barely visible from the exte-rior, is, in fact, of a rounded Ottoman type, sup-ported by pendentives, when viewed from the

interior.20 The dome rests on a square plan with two projecting side arms, an apse and kavit (a small hall or narthex separated from the nave by iron grilles, used as a meeting place), making it subtly cruciform in outline. This plan can be seen in Armenian churches, for instance, Surp Haç Church of the Mekhitarists in Venice, which also includes a blind dome that is rounded in shape. Therefore, the Beşiktaş Church incorporated characteristics compatible with Armenian architecture, but these were of a kind that was also not alien to Ottoman types. Indeed, the particular type of dome seen in the Beşiktaş Church, concealed from the outside by a gable but rounded on the interior, proved pop-ular within the mid nineteenth-century Ottoman setting. The same kind of dome was used by Karapet Balyan in his imperial architecture, for instance on the dome of the Audience Hall of the Dolmabahçe Palace (1856).

The interior decoration of the Surp Asdvadzad-zin Church is even more extraordinary for its resemblance to contemporary Ottoman imperial architecture. The walls of the church are coated with painted stucco ornament that depicts a vari-ety of motifs taken from European repertoires. There are wreathes, acanthus, flower-heads, S-scrolls, swags, festoons, and sunrays. A prominent feature is the Neo-Classical frieze of egg-and-dart and pilasters with Corinthian capitals. The effect of the polychrome stucco overlay is akin to the interior of a Renaissance villa.

The imperial mosques, palaces, and pavilions constructed by Karapet Balyan in the 1840s to ’50s, such as the Hırka-i Şerif and Mecidiye mosques of 1848, contain conspicuously similar interiors. The rich embellishment of these works with three-dimensional carved polychrome marble and molded painted stucco ornament was a new development. Previous churches such as Surp Haç of 1829 had

20 Elmon Hançer, “New Typology in 19th Century Istanbul Armenian Religious Architecture: Domed Churches and Bell Towers” in Kuruyazıcı, Armenian Architects, 80–90. This short essay mentions that the domes of some churches bear a resemblance to Ottoman ones.

notes that a manuscript states that the church was built in 1360 (other sources mention 1361 and 1391). The church was renovated in the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries before its demolition in the 1950s and rebuilding in 1965. As my friend Ünver Rüstem wisely pointed out to me, this rebuild must have stuck to the earlier model, given the difficult circumstances of the 1950s and 60s. Lora Baytar argues for Zobian’s 1965 authorship of the design which, she states, looks back to a medieval ‘Armenian Renaissance’, but includes very little evidence of this authorship. Lora Baytar, “A Structure by a Contemporary Armenian Architect that Connects Westernizing Istanbul to the Middle Ages” in Armenian Architects of Istanbul in the Era of Westernization, ed. Hasan Kuruyazıcı (Istanbul: Inter-national Hrant Dink Foundation Publications, 2010), 106–16. Pars Tuğlacı, Istanbul Ermeni Kiliseleri (Armen-ian Churches of Istanbul) (Istanbul: Pars Yayın, 1991), 162–169.


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not included decoration on this scale. Earlier mosques such as the Nusretiye of 1826 had also tended to include sparser Baroque, Neo-Classical and Empire elements. The use of a heavy overlay of relief ornament, depicting a common pool of European Neo-Classical and Renaissance motifs, was therefore a radical departure both from Con-stantinopolitan Armenian church traditions and from Ottoman modes of decoration that started with the Beşiktaş Church and remained in use throughout the imperial works of the 1840s to ’50s.

The extent of the inter-relationship between this church and the subsequent Ottoman architec-ture is shown by the transfer of an entire decora-tive scheme from one building to another, as seen in the case of the Beşiktaş Church (Figure 5.2) and the Mausoleum of Mahmud ii (Figure 5.3), built one year later by Karapet Balyan.

The Ottoman mausoleum and the Armenian Church have a common overlay of stucco deco-ration. The content and display of the ornament in these two buildings is in some ways identical: the side-walls and their egg-and-dart and dentil friezes, pilasters and Corinthian capitals are virtu-ally indistinguishable. The symbolic decorative components of the church and mausoleum also encompass several likenesses: the holy Armenian letters framed by a wreath with sunrays, seen in the dome of the church, are given an Ottoman imperial counterpart in the mausoleum in the form of roses with rays issuing from them.

The motif of a bouquet of roses became the symbol of the Ottoman dynasty during the nine-teenth century. When this symbol was included on the Ottoman coat of arms of the Hamidian Period it was described by Ottoman documentation as

Figure 5.� Surp Asdvadzadzin/Holy Mother of God Gregorian Armenian Church, Beşiktaş, Istanbul. Built in 1838 by Karapet Amira Balyan. View of dome© Alyson Wharton



Figure 5.� Mausoleum of Mahmud ii, 1839, Çemberlitaş, Istanbul. Built by Karapet Amira Balyan. View of dome© Alyson Wharton


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signaling to the magnanimity of the state.21 The motif of roses with sunrays was repeated on the gates to the Mahmud ii Mausoleum complex, showing its central importance to this work. The motif was commonly seen on subsequent build-ings such as the Galatasaray High School (1862) and the Dolmabahçe Palace.

Sunrays and wreathes were often part of the compositions of the Sultan’s tuğra, or imperial monogram, during the Tanzimat. In the setting of the church, sunrays can be seen in the altar, issu-ing from the all-seeing eye, sunrays also stream from the Armenian letters contained in wreathes in the dome. Heraldic imagery was adjusted to relate to the respective settings and to communi-cate the authority of the Armenian religion (and religious hierarchy), versus that of the Ottoman Sultan.

There is little specifically Armenian iconogra-phy in the decoration of the Surp Asdvadzadzin Church. This may have been the result of restric-tions on what could be depicted in the permanent decoration, since the moveable paintings are, on the whole, the ones that depict human figures. However this relative iconoclasm also seems to relate to the specific situation of the Armenian Community of the Ottoman Empire.

The most striking element of the decoration of the Beşiktaş Church is the display of isolated Armenian letters painted in the dome. This kind of heraldic presentation of Armenian letters, within wreathes and sunbursts, is unique in Armenian architecture. The manipulation of such symbols, common in European Renaissance and Baroque architectural decoration, especially in palace set-tings, evokes, in the Ottoman environment, the dynastic authority of the Sultan, the Patriarchate and the amiras. Although Armenian letters had a special divine significance within Armenian Chris-tianity and were unique signifiers of Armenian

identity, they are depicted here as if they were coats-of-arms, or European orders of merit. The close pictorial relationship with the Sultan’s tuğra cements this dynastic impression. There is certainly nothing that resembles typical ‘proto-national’ forms of representation such as a focus on historic events or national heroes or territory in the decora-tion of this church.

Some further Christian symbolic motifs are depicted in a heraldic style in the arch of the apse semi-dome of the Beşiktaş Church. These are a part of the arma Christi, which consists of the Cross surrounded by the elements of Christ’s Passion: scroll, spear, sponge, reed, ladder, flail, bowl, ewer, cloth, tong, hammer, nails (axis mundi or bewer ashkharli), fetters, and a rooster on a column. These symbols tell the story of the Crucifixion and were commonly seen in illumi-nated manuscripts as well as being used in nine-teenth-century Armenian textiles as part of a new iconography of the Divine.22

The employment of such symbolic motifs, pre-sented in a heraldic style, was adopted by the Patriarchate at some point in the nineteenth cen-tury. We can suggest that this imagery of the Patriarchate emerged under the influence of Karapet Balyan, his knowledge of European art and its techniques of representation. Distinctive clusters of motifs appear on many of the churches of Constantinople, for instance, an architectonic structure used at Easter in the Surp Asdvadzadzin Church of the Patriarchate depicts a central Armen-ian letter framed by a wreath, placed on a ladder, with spears, flags, axes, ribbons, and lanterns. Further motifs in a westernized heraldic style also adorned the furniture (thrones, candlesticks) and altarpieces of the nineteenth-century churches including that of the Patriarchate. Another com-mon motif that expresses spiritual meaning is the depiction of bunches of wheat forming a cross shape seen in the barrel vaults to each side of the dome, and in the apse of the Beşiktaş Church.

22 Marchese and Breu: Splendor & Pageantry, 211.

21 Selim Deringil, “The Invention of Tradition as Public Image in the Late Ottoman Empire 1808–1908”, Com-parative Studies in Society and History 35 no. 1 (1993): 3–29, on the coat of arms, 6–7.



Karapet Balyan, through his work on the Beşiktaş Surp Asdvadzadzin Church, not only developed the decorative and architectural ele-ments of the Ottoman imperial style which he was to apply in works such as the Dolmabahçe Palace, but he also formalized an iconography of the Patriarchate and of the Sultan through the display of heraldic and dynastic motifs. Karapet Balyan himself plays a part in this hybrid and symbolic imagery through his own portrait that is displayed in the church. In this portrait, Karapet is depicted standing next to his plan for the building, with his architect’s seal in hand, wearing his Ottoman fez and the black robes of a priest. The multilayered references of this image indicate that Karapet was fully aware of the use of pictorial symbols to com-municate identity (the seal of the architect, the Ottoman fez, and the robes of the priest). Therefore the iconography of this image shows not just the hybrid nature of his Armenian-Ottoman nine-teenth-century existence, but implies that Karapet was aware of this hybridity and manipulated it through the eclectic references of his church archi-tecture and decoration to communicate certain messages. Within Karapet’s architectural works such as the Beşiktaş Church and the Mausoleum of Mahmud ii symbols of European origin are knowingly deployed to communicate the power of the Gregorian Armenian Church and the Ottoman Sultan. These symbols are combined with the use of a common decorative overlay to show their participation in the same cultural background of Tanzimat- period elites, at once Armenian, Ottoman and westernized, forming a parallel to Karapet Balyan’s proud display of his Ottoman fez in his portrait.

3 The Armenian Catholic Church of Diyarbakır and ‘Local’ Style

In contrast with the affiliation of the churches of Constantinople with the westernized style of the early-Tanzimat imperial works under

the influence of Karapet Balyan, the Armenian churches built in the southeastern cities of Diyarbakır and Gaziantep gravitate towards the incorporation of aspects from local architectural tradition. The archi tecture and decorative features of these churches connect them to Islamic archi-tecture in their immediate vicinities, but this is not just the Ottoman but the pre-Ottoman Islamic heritage. Moreover, as the following section shows, this citationary relationship to the local architecture of the past betrays the underlining connection of the design approach of these southeastern churches to the stylistic develop-ments of the capital in the later years of the nineteenth century.

The Armenian Catholic Church of Diyarbakır was most likely a rebuild of a prior structure. An Armenian inscription identifies that the current church was constructed in 1895.23 The foundation includes a church of two stories and a ceremony room, but also a number of outbuildings (once lodgings and a school), so that the complex takes up a large corner of the Hasırlı neighborhood.

The structure of the church, a hypostyle rec-tangle punctuated by three naves, is a funda-mental departure from other Armenian churches

23 The Diyarbakır Doğal Ve Kültürel Varlıkları Koruma Envanteri (Inventory for the Protection of Natural and Cultural Remains) gives a date of the eighteenth cen-tury. Korkmaz suggests the sixteenth or seventeenth century because of the Ottoman tiles. Repairs carried out have uncovered the connection with Serkis Lole in 1895. An inscription with this date was noticed earlier by Julian Raby in an article on Diyarbakır tiles. Nimet Gökçe Korkmaz, “Diyarbakır Kiliseleri Kapsamında “Surp Sargis Kilisesi” Koruma Ve Resto rasyon Önerisi”/A Suggestion for the Protecting and Restoration of Surp Sargis Church in the Context of the Churches of Diyarbakır (Unpublished Masters Thesis, Yıldız Technical University, Istanbul, 2006); Julian Raby, “Diyarbakır: A Rival to Iznik. A sixteenth century tile industry in Eastern Anatolia,” Istanbul Mitteilungen 27/28 (1977/78): 429–59; Tigran Mkund, Amitayi ardza-gangner, vol 1 (Wee hawken, nj: Dickran Spear, 1950–53), 278.


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whether inside or outside of Ottoman domains.24 The central nave has three columns that support the flat roof. This arrangement is similar to Syrian churches from the locality and also to the Surp Giragos Armenian Apostolic Church (dating to 1515–18, rebuilt in 1883), although these examples have not three, but four, naves. The hypostyle nature also follows the typology of many of the mosques of the region, such as the Ulu Cami/Great Mosque (639, repaired 1091) with its roof sup-ported by lines of columns—itself originally a converted church.

The layout of the Armenian Catholic Church was therefore very much a local tradition. Churches in Constantinople and Anatolia tended to have, respectively, basilica or Greek Cross structures. Historic Armenian churches were frequently centrally-planned with a conical dome. This hypo-style arrangement was also a departure from the Ottoman- period mosques of Diyarbakır which most often took typical Ottoman plans, such as the Bıyıklı Mehmet Paşa Camii (1521) or the Behram Paşa Camii (1572). These were, following the impe-rial mosques of the capital, constructed including a central dome, combined with smaller domes and/or semi-domes. It is unclear at this stage whether the structure comes from the earlier church on the site. It could have been that a Syrian church was appropriated by the Catholic Armenians. Alter-natively, the church may have been built afresh in 1895 deliberately using the hypostyle model given by the local structures.

The construction materials of the Armenian Catholic Church (Figure 5.4) certainly reference the deep-rooted architectural culture of the local-ity, over more recent Ottoman works. The church is chiefly assembled from black basalt stone, which was the local construction material favored in the Ulu Cami and the city walls. Ottoman-period con-structions, such as the Bıyıklı Mehmed Paşa Camii, had tended to include more extensive striped

masonry and prominent leaded domes. White stone is used on the Armenian Catholic Church, both on the interior and exterior, in a decorative manner to depict distinctive patterns and motifs that are also frequently seen on works of the pre-Ottoman period including the Ulu Cami. This usage of black-and-white ornamentation could have represented a seamless continuation of local building tradition, but there is some evidence that suggests that this was a conscious revival.

White stone ornamental motifs and other fea-tures of historic local architecture became increas-ingly common on public buildings in Diyarbakır in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century such as the Güreba Hastanesi, the İdadi Binası, and the Cemil Paşa Konağı.25 These features can be seen alongside representations of the Turkish crescent, placed within a Neo-Classical façade. The eclectic nature of the incorporation of these ‘local’ elements within a Neo-Classical framework suggests that this was a conscious revivalism. The style has proved popular to this day: the Evangelical Church (2003) is in the same mode, combining the ‘local’ features of black-and-white basalt orna-mentation with more diverse elements such as Art Nouveau decorative iron grilles.

The interior of the Armenian Catholic Church of Diyarbakır includes resemblances to ‘local’ tra-dition of varying provenances. The impression of the interior space (Figure 5.5), the horizontal emphasis of the arcades with their pointed arches and circular oculi, is akin to that of the Syrian and Surp Giragos churches. Decorative features that are typical of the mosques of Diyarbakır fill the inte-rior. Elements from the local mosques include a characteristic form of ablaq (the use of alternative courses of light and dark masonry to give a striped effect) seen over the niches to the side of the main altar, steep muqarnas (three-dimensional carved decoration in the form of stalactites) vaults with

25 Gökhan Baydaş Özden, Diyarbakır ve Mardin deki Tarihi Kamu Yapıları/Public Buildings in Diyarbakır and Mardin (Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, Van Yüzüncü Yıl Üni-versitesi, 2007).

24 Orhan Cezmi Tuncer, Diyarbakır Kiliseleri/Churches of Diyarbakır (Diyarbakır: Diyarbakır Büyükşehir Beledi-yesi, 2002) has drawn plans for the churches.



geometric decoration and ‘type B’ capitals (as identified by Orhan Cezmi Tuncer in his studies of the mosques of the city).26 Ottoman tiles from the Classical Period and eighteenth century, which were made in Diyarbakır, and can also be seen in the city’s mosques, have been identified in the Catholic Church by Julian Raby.27

Some of these ‘Islamic’ components have been refashioned to suit the Christian religious environ-ment. Within the square panel that composes the lower part of the stucco muqarnas vaults that form the side altars (Figure 5.6), are cross motifs (these appear to be the imprints from earlier tiled deco-ration). There are also westernizing motifs akin to

those seen in the works of Constantinople, such as, in the borders alongside these cross motifs, a frieze of classicizing and naturalistic scrollwork with floral motifs. Motifs with a dynastic appear-ance can also be seen in the Diyarbakır Church: bouquets of flowers are gathered within Baroque cartouches made from S-scrolls in another one of the stucco niches (also shield motifs are carved on stone panels now lying outside the church). The panels of westernizing ornament within the niches are surrounded by multiple borders of muqarnas serving, again, to Islamize the whole.

This adroit display of the symbols of religion within an otherwise unrelated decorative overlay was an equivalent to what we saw in the Mau-soleum of Mahmud ii: where the Armenian letters of the Beşiktaş Church were replaced by calli-graphic roundels, both subversively situated within a westernizing Renaissance schema. This refash-ioning, in both cases, shows an awareness of the

26 Orhan Cezmi Tuncer, Diyarbakır Camileri: Mukarnas Geometri Orantı/Mosques of Diyarbakır, Their Muqarnas, Geometry and Proportions (Diyarbakır: Diyarbakır Büyükşehir Belediyesi, 1996).

27 Julian Raby, “Diyarbakır: A Rival to Iznik,” 429–59.

Figure 5.� Armenian Catholic Church, Diyarbakır, 1895. Built by Serkis Lole. Exterior, entrance facade© Alyson Wharton


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religious setting and the use of symbols to express the different function of that setting, despite the inclusion of a similar decorative coating for both the Christian and Muslim buildings (whether ‘local’ or Constantinopolitan). However, the over-all mixture of styles seen in the Diyarbakır Church is more eclectic than the Constantinople exam-ples. Instead of a westernizing overlay referenc-ing Neo-Classical and Renaissance styles, in Diyarbakır there is a ornamental covering that points to both East and West: the ‘local’ (Christian and Islamic) and Ottoman elements, alongside westernized floral motifs, dynastic shields, and Baroque brooches.

The greater eclecticism of the Diyarbakır Church may reflect the later date of the work and the stylistic shifts that had happened by that time. Imperial works from the Ottoman capital constructed during the last third of the nineteenth century were heavily influenced by European

revivalism, such as the Pertevniyal Valide Sultan Mosque (1872) and the Çırağan Palace (1867). These buildings incorporated a variety of Ottoman, non-Ottoman Islamic and European decorative influences. Distinctive motifs from historical styles, such as Gothic arches, or Mughal onion domes, were depicted to express (what was believed to be) the inheritance of Ottoman archi-tecture. The resultant style was referred to as an “Ottoman Renaissance”.

This late-nineteenth-century Ottoman stylistic transformation was related to the current Euro-pean notion that decoration could be used to communicate meaning.28 In France, symbolic

Figure 5.5 Armenian Catholic Church, Diyarbakır, 1895. Built by Serkis Lole. Interior, view towards altars© Alyson Wharton

28 These debates about ornament were widespread in the nineteenth century: Ruskin stated that “Ornamentation is the principal part of architecture” and Sir George Gilbert Scott wrote that the Gothic style’s chief func-tion was to decorate architecture. Pugin and Ruskin



decoration “represented, literally, what the build-ing ‘represented’ institutionally.”29 In Britain too, as Ruskin wrote in 1853, it was important that architecture “[spoke] well, and [said] the things it

was intended to say in the best words”.30 Styles had certain cultural associations and these com-municated their functions: the Italian Renaissance style used on banks signaled to the Medici, for instance.31 This revivalist understanding of style migrated not only to the Ottoman capital in the nineteenth century but was also seen in Cairo, where a Mamluk Revival style dated back to the influence of Pascal Coste (1789–1879) and prolifer-ated under chief engineer of pious foundations Saber Sabri (1845–1915).32

The related eclecticism of the public works in Diyarbakır (their amalgamation of the crescent motif, Neo-Classical façades and local basalt ornamental motifs) and the Armenian Catholic Church, which brought together a mixture of local motifs and styles with non-local ones, indi-cates that there was a degree of homogeneity in the design approach of late-nineteenth-century Diyarbakır building works. The great variety of the references in both buildings (spanning western-ized floral motifs, Gothic bell towers and various Islamic traditions, for instance), denotes that this style did not represent the continuation of local tradition but was related to contemporary revival-ist developments in Europe. The resemblance of this eclectic style to works such as Pertevniyal Valide Sultan Mosque (encompassing Gothic windows, westernized floral motifs, and references to past Islamic architectures) suggests that the European developments may have been witnessed through the filter of Constantin ople. Either way, the architects of the new institutional buildings and churches of nineteenth-century Diyarbakır had not simply assimilated aspects of the local

30 John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, edited and abridged by J.G. Links (London: Pallas Editions, 1853/2001), 17.

31 Barry Bergdoll, European Architecture 1750–1890 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 140–1.

32 Mercedes Volait, “Appropriating Orientalism? Saber Sabri’s Mamluk Revivals in Late-Nineteenth-Century Cairo”, in Islamic Art in the Nineteenth Century: Tradi-tion, Innovation and Eclecticism, ed. Doris Behrens-Abouseif and Stephen Vernoit (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 131–56.

(and later, Morris) directed their attention to the revival of ‘authentic’ and ‘local’ types of craftsmanship but they were nevertheless participating in the same general movement of the nineteenth century: the search for a style and the expression of this through ornament. Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design (London: Penguin, 1936/1991), 19–23.

29 David Van Zanth, Building Paris: Architectural Insti-tutions and the Transformation of the French Capital 1830–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 105.

Figure 5.� Armenian Catholic Church, Diyarbakır, 1895. Built by Serkis Lole. Interior, side altar with muqarnas vault© Alyson Wharton


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33 Ramazan Erhan Güllü, Antep Ermenileri. Sosyal-Siyasi ve Kültürel Hayatı (Istanbul: iq Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık, 2010), 87.

Figure 5.7 Surp Asdvadzadzin/Holy Mother of God Gregorian Armenian Cathedral, Gaziantep, 1893. Built by Serkis Balyan. Exterior, view of roadside façade© Alyson Wharton

urban fabric. This was a consciously local style that was formulated along European lines, but, at the same time, was carefully attuned to both the recent and distant traditions of Diyarbakır.

4 Surp Asdvadzadzin of Antep and ‘Local’-Eclectic Style

In Antep, a related style to that seen in Diyarbakır was chosen for one building of the late nineteenth century, which suggests that the eclectic mode was not restricted to one southeastern city. The Cathedral of Surp Asdvadzadzin (Figure 5.7), now

Kurtuluş Mosque, was built between 1878 and 1893. Permission to build the structure, which was a new work of extended size on the site of a former church, was granted in 1873, but construction was delayed due to epidemics, the Russo-Turkish War and lack of funds.33 The Cathedral is a large and prominent monument, situated at a point on the hill of the city. The structure towers on a platform that incorporates shops below, which, in the manner of a vakıf (pious endowment)



of Islamic architecture, supported the religious foundation.34

The plan is not, on paper, anything unusual: it is cruciform shape with a large main sanctuary, an apse and entrance hall or kavit with gallery. Yet, despite small side spaces giving the outline of a cross, the effect of the light and spacious interior, crowned by an immense dome of nine meters in diameter, relates more to an Ottoman imperial mosque than a church. The dome is itself of a roun ded type, crowning pendentives, which also invites this comparison. Nevertheless, the Cathedral does include some indications from the exterior of its status as a Christian place of worship: the pro-file of the dome is higher than an Ottoman type, and there was originally a bell tower, now a minaret.

The exterior architectural decoration of the Antep Cathedral reinforces the structure’s rela-tionship to Ottoman mosques through references to the various European styles currently being employed in the imperial architecture of Constantinople. The influence of these imperial works can most clearly be seen on the façade, which has a Neo-Classical basis. The institu-tional and palatial structures but also the mosques in nineteenth-century Con stan tinople adhered to Neo-Classical arrangements that gave their

exteriors a new regularized appearance. Works such as the Dolmabahçe Palace were characterized by prominent central pediments such as that seen on the Antep Cathedral. However, the façade of the Cathedral has a more textured appearance than the stiffer Neo-Classicism of the capital. The fluting and pilasters of the dome give the Cathe dral a closer resemblance to Renais sance archi tecture. The façade is adorned with Renaissance-style quoins (wherein the corner blocks of a building are articu-lated) that are, in this case, decorated with local striped masonry. The façade as a whole, due to the combination of its pediment, two tiers of windows and top row of circular openings just below the ped-iment, is, moreover, reminiscent of the Mannerist basilica of Palladio in Vicenza (1549–1614).

The interior of the Cathedral also includes the imprints of Renaissance architecture: the elegantly designed Italianate gallery resembles a double-loggia (Figure 5.8). This feature was

34 I have not come across any other examples of a vakıf-type arrangement. Churches often had substantial prop-erties, vineyards, and orchards, but I have not seen any with shops underneath, on the same site, in this manner. There is a mention in one Armenian account of the ‘rev-olutionaries’ building shops to support the new schools they had established in Tomarza (near Kayseri), this was seen to be a desecration of church land by the old chiefs of the town. This suggests that it was an innovation of the nineteenth century. However, this text depicts it as linked to the ‘revolutionaries’ as opposed to being taken from Ottoman-Islamic culture. This is from an extract from the memoirs of the Hunchak leader Stepan Sabah-Kulian included in the text of Barootian, also concern-ing Tomarza. Harou tiun Barootian, Reminiscences from Tomarza’s Past by Haroutiun Barootian, transl. John Barootian (London and Reading: Taderon Press, 2006), 151; Stepan Sabah-Kulian, Memories of Lesser Armenia, Vol 2 (Beirut, 1956), 144.

Figure 5.� Surp Asdvadzadzin/Holy Mother of God Gregorian Armenian Cathedral, Gaziantep, 1893. Built by Serkis Balyan. Interior, view towards entrance and balcony© Alyson Wharton


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common in Constantinople wherein mosques from Nusretiye (1826) onwards had included expansive balconies for the sultan to watch the prayers below. An additional classicizing emphasis is added in the Antep Cathedral through the pre-dominance of Corinthian capitals, which were also widespread in the imperial works. However, these capitals are made of red marble (Figure 5.9), which relates the Cathedral to local Antep tradi-tion, since the Surp Bedros Gregorian Church built in 1723 (Figure 5.10) that is situated close by has an elaborate polychrome marble opus sectile floor, including prevalent usage of the same bold red marble known locally as Çarpın taşı. The mihrab and courtyard flooring of the Ömeriye Mosque, built in 1210 but substantially repaired in 1786 and 1850, are also adorned with this red marble.

Additional references within the Surp Asd-vadzadzin Cathedral are made to the Napoleonic Empire Style of France through the round-arched windows, filled with ornate grilles. Allusions to Empire style were pronounced in the

nineteenth-century churches and imperial mosques built in the capital which consistently used such windows and grilles. The upper tier of windows of the Antep Cathedral strikes a differ-ent note but one that nevertheless also signals to the trends of the capital. These windows are Gothic in style, following the Gothic façades which adorned the imperial works of the 1860s and ’70s such as the Pertevniyal Valide Sultan Mosque and the Çırağan Palace.

These hybrid references to Neo-Classicism, Renais sance, Mannerism, Empire Style, and Gothic in the Cathedral are combined with an overlay of striped masonry applied to the exterior as well as interior elements such as the arches supporting the dome. This kind of masonry was common to the architecture of the region, whether pre-Ottoman or Ottoman, as is shown in the Boyacı Mosque of 1358 and the Ağa Mosque of 1554–59. Striped masonry can be seen in some works from the capital such as in the original interior of the Çırağan Palace, according to project drawings signed by Serkis Bey in the Nubarian Library in Paris. In this work, striped masonry was used only in small borders, as a visual quotation, forming one of the many styles that went into the eclectic references of the design whole. In the Antep Cathedral, this ostensibly ‘local’ striped masonry is a dominant feature.

Adding even further eclecticism to the architec-tural decoration of the Antep Cathedral is the highly decorated entrance façade. The carving of this façade depicts pilasters with the same type of Corinthian capitals with scrolls and central floral motif, seen in the interior, as well as many of the heraldic motifs of the churches of the capital, which can be associated with the nineteenth-century imagery of the Patriarchate, such as wheat, ribbons, sunbursts, and bows and arrows (Figure 5.11). This entrance façade is not facing the street but is concealed from the main thoroughfare, indicat-ing that there was some reticence to display such imagery to the general public, even though none of these symbols were overwhelmingly Armenian or Chris tian to the average passer-by.

Figure 5.� Surp Asdvadzadzin/Holy Mother of God Gregorian Armenian Cathedral, Gaziantep, 1893. Built by Serkis Balyan. Interior, red marble composite capital© Alyson Wharton



Figure 5.�0 Surp Bedros Gregorian Armenian Church, Gaziantep, built 1786. Interior, opus sectile pavement with red marble© Alyson Wharton

Figure 5.�� Surp Asdvadzadzin/Holy Mother of God Gregorian Armenian Cathedral, Gaziantep, 1893. Built by Serkis Balyan. Decorative detail of entrance façade© Alyson Wharton


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The hybrid aesthetic of the Surp Asdvadzadzin Cathedral is currently only a shadow of its former self. Although myriad references, including striped masonry, red marble Corinthian capitals, and Gothic windows, jostle for attention, areas that were origi-nally adorned with figural decoration are now whitewashed; these include the angels in the apse, which are now painted over and covered by a hang-ing Turkish flag. Some additional areas of red marble ornament survive where the side altars would once have been on either side of the apse (Figure 5.12). That most of the features that would have expressed the Armenian identity of the church, such as the religious paintings and the original furniture, have been removed, allows us to view more clearly the Ottoman and ‘local’ skeleton of

the structure and its ornament that remains, but we should not forget this other layer to the interior that once existed.

These interior and exterior features of the Antep Cathedral, like those of the Diyarbakır Church, heavily draw upon local architectural and decora-tive traditions, whether striped masonry or basalt ornamental motifs. The Antep work combines these local references with a Classical façade executed in a Renaissance style, an Otto man rounded dome and distinctive Gothic fenestration. The combina-tion of such seemingly disparate styles in this building, like the eclecticism seen in the public works and the Armenian Catholic Church at Diyarbakır, indicates that the Antep Cathedral was following developments in contemporary Europe. Seen also in the imperial works of the Ottoman capital, such as Pertevniyal Valide Sultan Mosque, this new style encompassed a mixture of histori-cal and contemporary architectural and decora-tive models. In the Valide Mosque, Renaissance, Gothic, and Islamic features were combined to express what was referred to as an ‘Ottoman Renaissance’. A related blend of local and Western traditions, within a European revivalist approach to design, is seen in the Antep Cathedral. However, in the case of Antep, the emphasis is not on pre-senting the sources of Otto man identity as it is in the Valide Mosque, but on expressing adherence to local identity.

5 Armenian Architects and an Eclectic-Revivalist Movement

Serkis Lole, the architect of the Armenian Catholic Church of Diyarbakır, constructed a large number of works in that city and in neighboring Mardin. It is significant that his works in Mardin are united by their emphatically ‘local’ style looking to the Classical, Christian, and Islamic architectural cul-ture of that city for inspiration. They encompass the horizontal façade arrangement, round-arched windows and carved decoration depicting vines and grapes that characterize the urban fabric of

Figure 5.�� Surp Asdvadzadzin/Holy Mother of God Gregorian Armenian Cathedral, Gaziantep, 1893. Built by Serkis Balyan. Interior, view of apse© Alyson Wharton



Mardin.35 Lole’s works include residential archi-tecture such as the Şahtana house (konak) built in 1890, institutional buildings of the reforming state, such as the vocational school for girls (formerly both an idadiye and rüşdiye school), built in 1898, Muslim architecture such as the minaret of the Şehidiye Mosque built in the early twentieth cen-tury, and Armenian churches such as the Catholic church of Surp Hovsep built in 1884.36

Lole expresses the sophistication of his archi-tectural knowledge through interspersing, within this overwhelmingly ‘local’ framework, references to European Renaissance and Gothic architecture. The flamboyant staircase to the Syrian Patriarchate, of 1895, looks to the Campidolio, Rome (1537) and Laurentinian Library (1524) by Michelangelo, whereas the mansion of Şahkulu Bey resembles the Loggia de Lanzi in Florence from 1376.37 The vaulting and tall thin columns of the interior of Surp Hovsep are Gothic, bearing a resemblance St Eugène built 1854–55 by Louis-Auguste Boileau (1812–96) in Paris. Although Lole worked in Beirut, it seems he did not travel to Europe but learned all he knew about architecture through his father’s training.38

The architect of the Antep Surp Asdvadzadzin Cathedral, the imperial architect Serkis Balyan (1831–99),39 is a less enigmatic figure. Serkis Bey, son of Karapet, was sent to Paris to attend the Collège Sainte-Barbe, then attending the École des Beaux Arts and the École Centrale. Serkis’s Parisian education, testified to by Armenian histories, the almanac of Teotik, contemporary Armenian news-papers and archival evidence from the Sainte-Barbe, the École Centrale and the Beaux Arts, sheds considerable light on the stylistic transfor-mations in the Ottoman context of the late nine-teenth century.40

During his time at the Sainte-Barbe in 1848–49, Serkis was taught a course in drawing or ‘dessin’. At the time, this involved copying from plaster casts of Antique works, Old Master drawings, and life models. This ‘Cours de dessin’ would have given a thorough education in European techniques of representation and knowledge of the history of art. During his attendance at the École des Beaux

Lole, April 2013. Reinforcing the story of the travel of the Lole Family to Lebanon is an Ottoman document that mentions “Mimar Jozef Elyas” in that territory in 1889. Osmanlı Başbakanlık Arşivi/bbk (Ottoman Prime Ministry Archives), hr.sfr.3, Dosya: 352, Gömlek: 45, 1889.11.09.

39 David Kertmenjian, “Planning And Architectural Reminiscences From Historical Aintab,” in Armenian Cilicia, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian and Simon Payaslian (Costa Mesa, ca: Mazda, 2008), 314; Güllü, Antep Ermenileri, 87–94; Kevork A. Sarafean, Patmutiun Antepi Hayots (Armenian History of Aintab), Vol 1 (Los Angeles, ca: The Union of Armenians of Aintab in America, 1953), 14–16; Gevorg Kadehjian, “Antepi mayr ekeghetsiin jartarapete” (The Architect of Aintab’s Cathedral, in Sarafean), Patmutiun Antepi Hayots, Vol 1, 443–44. These all name Serkis Balyan as the architect.

40 For a full account of the education of Serkis Balyan in Paris, including detailed references, see my thesis: Alyson Wharton, “Building the Tanzimat: the Power of the Balyan Family in the Age of Re-Organizations” (Unpublished PhD Thesis, soas, University of London, 2011) and forthcoming book: Alyson Wharton, Architects of Ottoman Constantinople: The Balyan Family and the History of Ottoman Architecture (London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2014).

35 Füsun E Alioğlu, Mardin Şehir Dokusu ve Evler/The Urban Fabric of Mardin and Its Houses (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 2000), 59–99.

36 Osmanlı Başbakanlık Arşivi/bbk (Ottoman Prime Minis-try Archives), I.DH, Dosya:949, Gömlek:75124, 1302.B.18 (1884). This document deals with the church rebuild-ing. The attributions of Lole’s works are based on cor-respondence with the relative of Serkis Lole, an article

by Tomas Çerme who is a relative of one of the patrons of Lole, and a travel book on Mardin. Tomas Çerme, “Taşçılık Zanaatı ve Mimarisiyle Mardin Şehri”, Tarih ve Toplum, 34, no. 200 (2000): 15–18; Correspondence with Liliane Ibrahim of Sydney Australia, great-granddaughter of Jalil, son of Serkis Lole, April 2013; Çiğdem Maner, A Travellers Guide to Mardin (Istanbul: Marev Yayınları, 2006/2011).

37 Çerme: “Taşçılık Zanaatı ve Mimarisiyle Mardin Şehri,” 15–18.

38 Correspondence with Liliane Ibrahim of Sydney Australia, great-granddaughter of Jalil, son of Serkis


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Arts in the early 1860s, Serkis attended courses in construction in various materials (wood, marble, metal and so on), and architecture, taught by luminaries such as Louis Jules André (1819–90). At the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in 1850–51, Serkis would have been equipped with the capability to apply the sciences to public works, since the school combined lessons in theory with experiments, and operations.

As a result of this education at Paris’s best pri-vate colleges, Serkis Balyan would have been highly trained in artistic skills and in the latest techno-logical advances and would have acquired a valu-able set of contacts amongst the Parisian elite. Drawings kept in the Nubarian Library in Paris, show that he was a highly skilled draughtsman in the European manner (for instance, making full use of perspective, unlike the architectural draw-ings from the nineteenth century held in the Topkapı Palace Archives). Ottoman documen-tation expresses that Serkis Bey was engaged in building railways and extracting raw materials, amongst other industrial and construction-related activities in his capacity as director of the Ottoman Company of Public Works, which he established in 1873.

An additional influence over Serkis Bey during his time at the École des Beaux Arts must have been one of the most influential architects and theorists of the period, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814–79), who was teaching a course in ‘Aesthetics and the History of Art’ at the school at the same time Serkis was in attendance. Serkis would also have been able to learn about Viollet-le-Duc’s the-ories from his colleague Léon Parvillée (1830–85), who worked with his father Karapet on the Dolmabahçe Palace in the 1850s.41 Parvillée was a disciple of Viollet-le-Duc and wrote a text on Ottoman architecture in 1874 that contained an

introduction from his mentor. This included the idea, common in Europe at the time, that ‘l ʾart turc’ was related to Gothic and Crusader architec-ture, and that it was not a unique style but a mix-ture of Arab, Persian, and ‘Hindu’ traditions.42

Serkis Balyan made a group of works in the 1860s and ’70s that included the Pertevniyal Valide Sultan Mosque and the Çırağan Palace, which, following the ideas of Viollet-le-Duc and Parvillée, mixed Ottoman elements from the much earlier Bursa-period, along with other Islamic styles and Gothic features—for example, the window grilles and ver-tical façade of the Valide Mosque. To this were also added European-Baroque-derived motifs and styles, such as the urns with bouquets of flowers depicted in the trompe lʾoeil dome of that mosque.

Works such as the Valide Mosque and the pal-aces of the 1860s and ’70s included a vision of Islamic architecture (and particularly an emphasis on the decorative styles used within this architec-ture) that was akin to that expressed in the studies of the English-born Welsh architect and design-the-orist Owen Jones (1809–74). In the Beylerbeyi Palace (1864) of Serkis Balyan, for instance, wall paintings that form strong parallels with Jones’s Moorish and Arabian styles in The Grammar of Ornament (1856) are predominant.43 Owen Jones, like many other architect-theorists of the nineteenth century, was engaged in the search for a modern style of archi-tecture. He, following travels to the Middle East and his studies of the Alhambra, advocated that Islamic architectural decoration presented the ideal forms to coat such a modern architecture.44

42 Léon Parvillée, LʾArchitecture et Decorations Turques au XVe siècle par Léon Parvillée; avec une préface de E. Viollet-le-Duc (Paris: Ve A. Morel, 1874).

43 Filiz Yenişehirlioğlu, “Continuity and Change in Nine-teenth Century Istanbul: Sultan Abdülaziz and the Beylerbeyi Palace”, in Islamic Art in the Nineteenth Century: Tradition, Innovation and Eclecticism, ed. Doris Behrens-Abouseif and Stephen Vernoit (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 57–89.

44 Carol A. Hrvol Flores, Owen Jones: Design, Ornament, Architecture and Theory in an Age in Transition (New York: Rizzoli, 2006).

41 This working connection between Karapet Balyan and Parvillée was pointed out by Miyuki Aoki Girardelli, “A Parisian in Istanbul: Ambivalent Perceptions of Léon Parvillée,” Thirteen International Congress of Turkish Art (Budapest: Hungarian National Museum, 2009), 84.



The advent of the international expositions made the desire to identify a modern style and to represent it on the world’s stage an even more pressing concern. These exhibitions were the set-ting for intense competition between empires and nascent nation-states, whose pavilions were lined up alongside one another. Through this environ-ment, the search for a modern style became the search for a national style.45 The appropriation of Islamic art by Europeans such as Owen Jones, as seen in his designs for the Great Exposition of 1851, provoked the Ottomans into reinvestigating their own relationship to (and reclaiming possession of) this heritage. This reaction was also provoked by the usage of neo-Islamic styles in the mid-nineteenth century architecture of Constantinople carried out by ‘foreigners’46 such as the Fossati brothers and Marie-Auguste-Antoine Bourgeois, referred to more recently as an Orientalist style.47 That an archaeo-logically correct historicism was advocated in the following period has been interpreted as an “anti-Orientalist” development.48

The Pertevniyal Valide Sultan Mosque can be explicitly linked to the setting of the international expositions and the discussions over national styles that were fermenting. A text that was writ-ten for the Ottoman delegation to the 1873 Vienna Exposition, Usul-u Mimar-i Osmaniye (The Rules of Ottoman Architecture), which was the first book on the history of Ottoman architecture, upholds that a Neo-Ottoman style should be used for modern Ottoman architecture and refers to the Valide Mosque as a part of an “Ottoman Renais-sance.” This text was produced by a group of Ottoman officials and architect-decorators, some of whom had worked on several projects with Serkis Bey. The text can therefore be seen to reflect the intentions behind the creation of this style.49

However, the Valide Mosque is in fact not a Historicist work but, like the Armenian churches surveyed within this chapter, it follows a syncretic approach. This difference indicates that Serkis Balyan did not wholeheartedly follow European academic directives but chose to ‘re-fashion’ them

1986/1993); Sibel Bozdoğan, Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the Early Republic (Washington: University of Washington Press, 2001); Ahmet Ersoy, “Architecture and the Search for Ottoman Origins in the Tanzimat Period”, Muqarnas 24 (2007), 79–115.

49 Ahmet Ersoy, “On the Sources of the ‘Ottoman Renaissance’: Architectural Revival and its Discourse During the Abdülaziz Era (1861–76)” (Unpublished PhD Thesis, Harvard, 2000). Marie De Launay, Montani Pietro et al Usul-u Mimar-i Osmaniye/LʾArchitecture Ottoman (Istanbul, 1873, reprint, Istanbul: Tarih Araştırmalar Vakfı, T.C. Kültür Bakanlığı, 1998). The term ‘Ottoman Renaissance’ is given in the French text as ‘la renaissance de lʾarchitecture ottomane’ and in the Ottoman as ʿusul-i mimari-i ‘Osmanının mebde-i ihyası’ (reviving the source of Ottoman architecture). Ersoy, “On the Sources of the ‘Ottoman Renaissance’,” 269. Although, Ersoy has identified that some of the authors of this text worked with the Balyan Family, and I have found further evi-dence of this, he does not associate them with the cre-ation of an ‘Ottoman Renaissance’ style but states that they were ‘kalfa’ and men of practice not linked to intel-lectual circles.

45 Zeynep Çelik, Displaying the Orient: Architecture of Islam at Nineteenth-Century World’s Fairs (Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford: University of California Press, 1992).

46 The works of Paolo Girardelli demonstrate how ‘local’ these perceived foreigners actually were, along with their designs. Paolo Girardelli, “Ottoman Influences in the Works of some Italian Architects Active in Nineteenth Century Istanbul”, in Turkish Art: 10th International Congress of Turkish Art, Geneva, 17–23 September 1995: Proceedings (Art turc: 10e Congrès inter-national dʾart turc, Genève, 17–23 Septembre 1995) ed. François Déroche; Antoinette Harri; Allison Ohta (Genève: Fondation Max Van Berchem, 1999), 361–8.

47 Turgut Saner, 19. Yüzyıl Istanbul Mimarlığında ‘Oryan-talizm’ (Orientalism in the 19th-Century Architecture of Istanbul) (Istanbul: Pera Turizm Yayınları, 1998).

48 Gülru Necipoğlu and Sibel Bozdoğan, “Entangled dis-courses: scrutinizing Orientalist and Nationalist lega-cies in the architectural historiography of the Lands of Rum”, Muqarnas 24 (2007), 1–6; Çelik, Displaying the Orient; Zeynep Çelik, The Remaking of Istanbul: Portrait of an Ottoman City in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley; Los Angeles; Oxford: University of California Press,


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to develop his own original style. This ‘Ottoman Renaissance’ was thus a fusion of Ottoman tradi-tions, features taken from Islamic historical archi-tecture and more recent European innovations.

Further examples of Armenian-Ottoman archi-tects working in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, looking towards Parisian his-toricism and eclecticism, and implementing a mixture of these ideas into their works, can be identified. The contents of the private library—sold in 2000—of another architect, Léon Nafilian, who was also active in the Ottoman Empire, and attended the Beaux Arts, reflects that he collected various texts: on the history and arts of the empire, on Europe, but also on Armenian history. In con-trast with Balyan, Nafilian built in a Neo-Ottoman style for his works in Constantinople, such as the İş Bankası in Karaköy, and in an Armenian Historicist style for his Parisian works including churches, tombs, and the Cité Universitaire.

It is striking that these architects, Balyan, Nafil-ian, and Lole, did not choose to implement aspects from Armenian architecture into their Ottoman Empire-based designs. Instead, the Diyarbakır Cath-olic Church and the Antep Apostolic Cathedral seem to have been constructed, similarly to works such as the Pertevniyal Valide Sultan Mosque in the capital, to express what were perceived to be the long-held and ancestral characteristics of the identity and the architecture of that locality. An overt expression of Armenian-ness did not enter into this equation.

The works of these architects fits within a broader context of historical examples of Arme-nians appropriating the architectural and decora-tive traditions of their overlords (or those in whose power they wished to have a stake). The use of Islamic Abbasid models from Samara and Baghdad in the relief carving of the Armenian Cathedral at Akhtamar of the Bagratids (the tenth-century Armenian dynasty ruling over the Lake Van region), has been argued by art historian Lynn Jones to show the Bagratid royal Gagik’s power through the adoption of Islamic courtly iconography. Gagik is depicted wearing Islamic costume which “displays

the source of his authority and asserts his legiti-macy.”50 Additionally, studies on the Armenian architecture in New Julfa have asserted that the churches are “architectonically indistinguisha-ble from contemporary mosques in Isfahan,” which shows the integration and acculturation of the Armenian merchants into the Safavid household.51 The Armenians’ private mansions even mimicked aspects of the royal household, showing the “politico-cultural assimilation” of the new elites.52 However, in both of these cases, despite the incor-poration of elements from Islamic architecture, the structures of Akhtamar and Vank in New Julfa remain conically domed; therefore they retain the spatial and architectonic features of historic Armenian examples.

More practical reasons behind the adoption of the style of architecture or decoration of respec-tive ‘imperial masters’ can also be cited. Sarraf Sarkis Hovhannesian (c. 1800) notes that during the reign of Mahmud i churches were built at the same time as additions to the Topkapı Palace. As the result of this, materials were made available, including iron panels from doors which were incorporated into the Balat Surp Hreşdagabet Church, since they were surplus to requirements for the palace.53 A non-imperial, provincial, version can be seen in Tomarza where Avak Kalfa Akgulian in 1910–11 built a new mosque for the Ottoman-Muslim pop-ulation. According to the account of Haroutiun Barootian, the yard entrance gate was a replica of the Tomarza Monastery’s ‘Pasha’s guest room’ entrance arch. He adds that these works were so attractive to the local people that members of the

50 Lynn Jones, Between Islam and Byzantium. Aghtʾamar and the Visual Construction of Medieval Armenian Rulership (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 61.

51 Susan Babaie, Kathryn Babayan, Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, and Massumeh Farhad, Slaves of the Shah. The New Elites of Safavid Iran (London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 12.

52 Babaie et al, Slaves of the Shah, 12.53 Sarraf Sarkis Hovhannesian, Istanbulʾun Payitaht Tar-

ihçesi (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1800/1996), 24–25.



Muslim community requested Avak Kalfa to return when he immigrated to America.54 These exam-ples suggest that an overlap in style between imperial works and Armenian churches could be explained simply in terms of the available mate-rials and stylistic models being used by the Arme-nian imperial or local architect active at the time. However, given the intense discussions about style that were taking place in the nineteenth century, which have been discussed in this chapter, the choice of a particular style and its repeated usage on a number of buildings was more likely to have been associated with a meaning.

6 The Role of the Patron: Nicholos Ağa Nazaretyan and the Antep Cathedral

There are some indications that the mimicking of the style of the imperial capital was indeed delib-erate in the case of Surp Asdvadzadzin, Antep. Armenian textual accounts record that the patron of the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral was a mem-ber of one of the foremost local Armenian trading families, Nicholas Agha Nazaretyan, who had also established his own khan (a commercial building or inn that was a meeting place, stop-over, depot for goods and center of trade). One Armenian text states that it was an intention for the church to attract the attention of the inhabitants of the city. Given this evidence, the construction of Naza-retyan’s Cathedral can be read as a deliberate show of his local power, wealth and importance. Ref erences to the cost of the Cathedral in the Arme nian text and to the extravagant bell, made in Brazil by a London Armenian craftsman, also indicate at such a meaning of the Cathedral as a show of Nazaretyan’s power on the local stage.55

Building the Cathedral could have formed part of a competitive dialogue with other wealthy Arme-nian tradesmen, who also established khans and

schools in the city. For instance, the Kürkçüyan family had a khan, a middle school, and were involved with the Hayik Protestant Church in Antep which opened in 1865.56 With its prominent site and per-ceptibly ‘local’ architectural traditions, the Cathe-dral could have been asserting the historical belong ing of the Orthodox Armenians, and of this particular family of tradesmen, to the city of Antep.

Nevertheless, the Armenian text adds that Serkis Balyan was invited to be the architect since he was responsible for a large number of churches in the capital.57 This indicates that he was, in fact, cho-sen not because of his ability to build in a ‘local’ Antep style but because of his association with the works of Constantinople. It is interesting that Serkis Bey is referred to in the Armenian text as the archi-tect of many churches, when he is not known for building any churches in the capital, only mosques: the Valide Mosque of 1872 and the never-completed Aziziye Mosque of the late 1870s. Serkis was most likely appointed simply for his knowl-edge of the latest styles of the center, and it is prob-able that Nazaretyan’s primary intention was for his Cathedral to participate in these latest fashions and to show his power through this participation. There may have been an additional desire of the patron (or the author of the Armenian text) to add some intimations of Armenian or religious legit imacy to his choice of architect and so Serkis’s association with building churches could have been fabri-cated to meet this end.

7 The ‘Local’-Eclectic Style as Viewed by Inhabitants?

Although this chapter has offered some readings of the style of the Surp Asdvadzadzin Cathedral of

56 Güllü, Antep Ermenileri, 89–91; Sarafean, Antepi Hayots, 14–16; Kertmenjian “Planning and Architectural Remi-nis cences”, 315, on ‘Kurkjian Khan’.

57 Güllü, Antep Ermenileri, 87–88; Sarafean, Antepi Hayots, 14–16; Kadehjian, “Antepi mayr ekeghetsiin jartarapete”, 443–44.

54 Barootian, Reminiscences from Tomarza’s Past, 21–22.55 Güllü, Antep Ermenileri, 87–88; Sarafean, Antepi Hayots,

14–16.


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Antep according to the perspectives of the archi-tect and the patron, it is more difficult to view these works through the eyes of the ordinary inhabitants of the city. The British consuls stationed through-out Anatolia give us a uniquely close-up (although potentially biased) perspective on the activities and mentality of the people resident in their local-ities. The reports of the ‘Consul for Kurdistan’ sta-tioned in Diyarbakır in 1878–79 shed particular light on the relations between and within religious groups that may have affected their self-presentation through architecture.

The accounts of the Consul display an over-whelming local sensibility and animosity against outside interference amongst Apostolic Armenians of Diyarbakır. For instance, Bishop Phillipos, who had been educated in Russia, is reported as causing aggravation by sending telegrams describing the suffering of Armenians to the foreign powers. As a result of his activities, he had become unpopular with leading members of his own community who claimed that he was about to bring about a colli-sion between them and the Muslims.58 How ever, when the Bishop was removed by the Patri archate, following the suggestions of the British Consul to his Ambassador, a petition was sent from ‘the Arme-nian women of Diarbekir’, which protests at his treatment, the intrigues of the Brit ish and the “ ‘un-constitutional’ manner in which he was removed.”59

The problems in Diyarbakır were not just due to Bishop Phillipos. A dispatch of April 16, 1879 tells of tensions between the Armenians, Chaldeans, and Jacobites, versus the Protestants. Some claimed that the Protestants had become ‘unbearable’ since the arrival of the British Consul, and incidents had taken place in Sert and Midyat. The consul urged them to keep peace “especially in the present very critical state of affairs when it behoves all

Chris tians to be good friends.”60 Yet, the Protestants clearly had a relationship to the British that irked other inhabitants of the city. On his visit in 1891, the traveler Henry C. Barkley stated of the pastor Boyadjian:

“a gentleman entered, who appeared to be an English clergyman . . . he had been working among his fellow countrymen, teaching them the doc-trines of the Church of England, and persuading them to follow its precepts . . . Besides holding two full services each Sunday, and teaching daily in the schools he had established, he had also been elected a member of the town megliss, and Abdurrahman Pasha, the governor, consulted him in all matters, and, what is more, often took his advice.”61

Also showing the degree of his influence is the fact that during Consul Trotter’s absence, Mr. Boy ad-jian is left as Acting Vice Consul in Diyarbakır.62

This criticism of the proximity of the Protestants to the British (and the fact that they had become “unbearable”) by the other Christian inhabitants, suggests a local animosity against foreign interfer-ence, which had also been indicated by the peti-tion of the Armenian women of Diyarbakır. One consular account mentions the constant sending of “Money, valuable presents, rich sacerdotal vest-ments” by the Russians, which implies that foreign inroads were attempted on several levels.63 Lead-ing members of the Armenian communities were certainly anxious of being discovered by the Otto man State to have Russian ties (hence the notables did not attend the “theatrical perfor-mance” in Diyarbakır mentioned by Trotter in

60 British National Archives, FO/195/1211, Kurdistan Con-sulate, April 16, 1879, 238–39.

61 Henry C. Barkley, A Ride through Asia Minor and Arme-nia (London: John Murray, 1891), 275–76.

62 British National Archives, FO/195/1211, Kurdistan Con-sulate, July 25, 1879, 388.

63 British National Archives, FO/78/1538, British Con-sulate, Aleppo, August 20, 1860 no. 29, 285.

58 British National Archives, FO/195/1211, Asia Minor Con-sulates, ‘Kurdistan, Erzeroum, Diarbekir’ 1878–1870, Trot-ter to Layard Jan 17, 1879, 112–13.

59 British National Archives, FO/195/1211, Kurdistan Con-sulate, Petition attached to dispatch 20/26 March 30, 1879, 229.



1879,64 nor did they meet the Russian consul at the gates of the city, unlike Phillipos and “a rabble of lower class Armenians”).65

Yet, there is the overwhelming sense from the consular reports that Apostolic Armenians pre-ferred living as Ottomans: “Their interests no less than their inclinations disposed them to be loyal to Ottoman rule, for they had no desire to be absorbed by Russia and to lose their distinction of race.”66 The Apostolic Church vehemently acted against foreign influence on some occasions: Arme-nians in Antep were excommunicated when the priest discovered they had been learning from mis-sionaries and at Marash the Zeitoonlis “have threat-ened to kill any priest or missionary venturing to tamper with their allegiance to their Church.”67

This ill feeling between the Orthodox and Catholics (who were increasingly associated with France and involved in political issues), as well as Protestants (primarily connected to the British), can be seen in various regions over the nineteenth century, as well as disputes between other non-Muslim groups of particular regions.68 One nota-ble incident comes when Ibrahim Pasha allowed the Catholic sects to practice their religion freely, the Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch “fired off an appeal to the Sultan, threatening that he might turn to Russia as the Catholics had to France, if

the Sultan did not intervene to preserve the pre-rogatives of the Orthodox millet that were under attack.”69

The local Ottoman authorities may also have made efforts to hinder the development of mis-sionary activity in their area, particularly when it was associated with foreign powers. For instance, in 1896 there were requests by the French consu-late and some Christian priests to build a Catholic church in Antep but these were refused on the grounds of the small Catholic population and the fact that the site chosen was close to Muslim neighborhoods. However, the authorities ended up giving permission for it to be built in 1898, and it was completed in 1903.70 In Urfa, after the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral was damaged in the massa-cres of 1895, Rendel J. Harris and Helen B. Harris write, in reply to a request from the representa-tives of the community, that it would be impossi-ble for the Armenians to gain permission from the Sultan to rebuild their church with the involve-ment of foreign money.71

Given this climate of distrust of foreign influ-ence, it is not surprising that the churches of all the Christian communities show a concerted attempt to appear ‘local’. Just as the Armenian notables were wary of being associated with Russian-leaning theatrical performances, they would have been aware of the social and political need for their churches to appear as indigenous as possible.

Churches were the public symbols of the com-munity, and, in rural areas, they were under constant attack. The consular documents include numerous accounts of churches being ransacked, their valua-bles taken, and their priests humiliated and assaul-ted. For instance, in one incident, a Muslim from Mush, Baghik’s son Sado, put a puppy into the arms

69 Masters, Christians and Jews, 136 (cites the document from the Ottoman Prime Ministry Archives, bbk, hh 33656).

70 Güllü, Antep Ermenileri, 94.71 Rendel J. Harris, and Helen B. Harris, Letters from

Armenia (London: James Nisbet & Co, 1897), Urfa, May 17 1896, 85.

64 British National Archives, FO/195/1211 Kurdistan Con-sulate, Trotter to Layard Jan 17, 1879, 113.

65 British National Archives, FO/195/1211, Kurdistan Con-sulate, May 9, 1879, 265.

66 British National Archives, FO/78/4334, Therapia, July 26, 1890 no. 335, 87.

67 Alice Shepard Riggs, Shepard of Aintab (New York: Inter-church Press, 1920), 172. British National Archives, fo 78/1538, British Consulate Aleppo, March 31 1860, 74.

68 Ussama Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism. Com mu-nity, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Otto-man Lebanon (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2000), on the multiethnic and multi-religious territory of the Ottoman Empire being visualized as a Muslim state with Christian ‘minorities’ after the impact of the Tanzimat and encroaching European/colonial influence, i.e., “the redefinition of new communal and social boundaries”, 13.


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of a priest named Krikor and forced him to ascend the altar. In another example, Kurds broke into the monastery of Mizangert in Chyrnyo, exhumed a corpse and defiled it; they tore the church pictures down and smeared them with filth.72

This evidence of the hostility of the Armenians towards foreign intrusions into their ‘prerogatives’ indicates that their local sensitivity, as viewed in their architecture, was, to an extent, a genuine and deliberate expression of their locally rooted iden-tity and power. Corresponding to their image as the protégés of the French and British, we would expect the churches of the Protestants and Catholics to be overtly westernized in style.73 Yet these works

also make considerable attempts to appear ‘local’. Those in Diyarbakır incorporate local basalt and the distinctive bell tower protruding from the side, while those in Antep include the characteristic striped masonry.

Some small differences do signal the separate allegiances of the Protestants and Catholics. In the fenestration, the Diyabakır Protestant Church (1871) has large round-arched windows, and the Antep Catholic Church (1903) has stained glass. The latter also includes a steep façade (Figure 5.13) orna-mented with a logo of a coat of arms with crown (in contrast, the dynastic motifs were hidden on the

Figure 5.�� Catholic Church of Gaziantep (“Kendirli Kilisesi”), completed 1903, Gaziantep© Alyson Wharton

72 British National Archives, FO/195/1237, Erzurum August 19, 1879, 54.

73 Most works that investigate the effect of the missionary activities emphasize their imposition of their own symbols and systems of representation and their domi-nation of the local environment. However, as we have seen in this chapter, they do show an effort to

assimilate to an extent. Hans-Lukas Kieser, Iskalanmış Barış: Doğu Vilayetleriʾnde Misyonerlik, Etnik Kimlik ve Devlet 1839–1938/ The Missed Peace: Missionaries, Ethnic Iden tity and the State in the Eastern Provinces 1839–1938 (Istanbul: Iletişim, 2005). Keiser states, for instance: “ . . . böylece kendi aziz tasvirlerine, yerel azizler karşısında öncelik vereceğini göstermiş oluy-ordu” (in this way, it was like their own saints were pri-oritized, when compared with the local saints), 79.



rear of the nearby Apostolic Cathedral). In the plans we see the biggest show of difference: in Antep the Catholic Church is a Latin cross with transept, and in Diyarbakır the Protestant Church is a Greek Cross, both of which were at odds with buildings in their immediate vicinity. That even this degree of foreign-ness was palpable is indicated by the fact the Catholic Church is strewn with bullet holes, and adorned with a plaque referring to Mustafa Kemal and the defense of Antep. In con-trast, the Apostolic Cathedral was converted to a mosque and continues to serve this function.

The need to remain viewed as ‘the faithful com-munity’ (millet-i sadıka) became even more press-ing for Armenians as the nineteenth century drew to a close. This scenario is shown by a petition dated to 1890 sent to Abdülhamid ii by the Arme-nian notables of Constantinople (and printed on December 2 in the Levant Herald), including Serkis Balyan as a signatory. A few of the lines state:

“Quelques individus servant une idée contraire au salut et aux intérêts de la fidèle communauté arménienne, osent, par ci pas là, faire des publica-tions et se permettre des procédés illégaux, afin de briser les liens de fidélité qui rattachent ‘ab antiquo’ les Arméniens à l’Empire Ottoman d’éternelle durée et s’efforcent ainsi de tromper les simples. Les individus forment une infime minorité de la communauté arménienne et n’ont aucune qualité ni aucun droit de procéder au nom de la communauté.74

[Some individuals have used an idea contrary to the interests and salvation of the faith ful Armenian Community, they have dared, here and there, to make publications and allow illegal pro-ceedings, in order to break the bonds of loyalty, which have bound, ‘ab antiquo’ the Armenians to the Ottoman Empire of Eternal Duration, and they

have thus endeav ored to mislead the simple ones. These individuals form a tiny minority of the Armenian Community and they do not have any quality nor any right to proceed on behalf of the community.]”

The churches that have been investigated in this chapter serve as the built-environment equiva-lent to this petition. They were a public proclama-tion of local and Ottoman solidarity on behalf of the notables of their Armenian communities: a visual message to accompany the above verbal response. The use of a local plan seen in Syrian churches, the dominance of basalt and its decora-tive motifs, for the case of the Diyarbakır Catholic Church, the use of the characteristic Antep striped masonry for the case of the Surp Asdvadzadzin Cathedral, and, above all, the absence of osten-sibly ‘Armenian’ elements in both of these build-ings, reflects this desire to express social cohesion.

74 British National Archives, fo 78/4334; a statement with similar content was issued four years later by the elites of Constantinople to those of the provinces: Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi bbk, Y.PRK.TKM dosya: 33, gömlek: 91, 1312/1894–5.

Figure 5.�� Alaüdevvle/Ali Dola Mosque, Gaziantep, 1901. Built by Armenak and Krikor. Façade© Alyson Wharton


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The choice of this local style was not, however, just an effort to fit in for fear of a ‘collision’. The Surp Asdvadzadzin Cathedral towered over the streets of Antep. The bell tower of the Surp Giragos Armenian Apostolic Church in Diyarbakır, built in 1913 in a flamboyant Gothic style, soared over the minarets of the city. These points indicate that these communities were not making architectural choices solely on the basis of fear. Instead this style was a reflection of the genuine self-vision of these Armenians as participants in their local and imperial architectural culture.

That the architectural decoration of the Antep Cathedral was a resounding success, not just amongst Armenians but also Muslims of the city, is indi-cated by the fact that its style is echoed closely in the Alaüddevle/Ali Dola Mosque (Figure 5.14). This mosque includes not only the striped masonry but also the Gothic windows and the same carved frieze of floral motifs of the Cathedral. It, built in 1901 by an Armenian architect Armenak and chief craftsman Krikor, serves as further evidence for the engagement of Armenian-Ottoman architects during the latter stages of the ‘long nineteenth century’ with the eclectic-revivalist idiom in their architecture that reshaped the cultural landscape of the empire, or at least its built environment, at that time.

8 Conclusion

The role of Armenian architects has been mini-mized in the literature on the stylistic develop-ment of Ottoman architecture. Armenian architects are viewed as kalfa: a term which has often been translated in a derogatory manner to mean ‘master builder’, or even ‘contractor’, and their influence in the nineteenth century has been viewed as symp-tomatic of the decline of Ottoman imperial archi-tecture.75 Although some ‘Ottoman’ features or styles have been identified in Armenian, Greek, and

also Catholic Armenian Churches in Constanti-nople, the role of their architects and their relation-ship to imperial works has not been investigated in the past. Their style has been explained only in terms of general social issues.76

This chapter, in contrast, has demonstrated the predominance of the role that Armenian architects, trained in Western techniques of building and representation, played in the promulgation of Ottoman imperial style. It has shown that they were not passive recipients or corrupt disseminators of Westernization, but instead they played an active role in formulating a new style that was shaped by contemporary European thought but which involved the adap-tation of this to local Ottoman traditions, forms and styles.

The church buildings surveyed in this chapter show how this new Ottoman style was developed in the early nineteenth century. Members of the Balyan Family used church projects of the 1830s and ’40s to shape their decorative vision as well as new structural types. These innovative decorative and structural features were subsequently applied to imperial works such as the Mausoleum of Mahmud ii and the Dolmabahçe Palace.

The church buildings from the provinces that date from later in the nineteenth century show the continued participation of Armenian architects in the new decorative modes of the capital. The suc-ceeding revivalist ‘Ottoman Renaissance’ style of Serkis Balyan of the 1860s and ’70s, seen in works such as the Valide Mosque, was applied to his Cathedral in Antep, for instance. However, these

76 For the Armenian case, see the paper by Elmon Hançer mentioned before. For Greeks see: Zafer Karaca, Istan-bulʾda Osmanlı Dönemi Rum Kiliseleri /Greek Churches of Istanbul from the Ottoman Period (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 1995); Hasan Kuruyazıcı and Eva Şarlak, Batılılaşan İstanbulʾun Rum Mimarları/The Greek Architects of Westernizing Istanbul (Istanbul: Zoğrafyon Lisesi Mezun lar Derneği, 2010–11). For Catholics, see Paolo

Girardelli, “Architecture, Identity And Liminality: On the Use and Meaning of Catholic Spaces in Late Ottoman Istanbul,” Muqarnas 12 (2005): 233–64.

75 For a full discussion of this issue see my thesis and forth-coming book. Also see: Kuruyazıcı, Armenian Architects.



works in the provinces were always adapted to a particular local self-vision, showing how this style was, indeed, laden with meaning relating to the display of identity.

Although the eclectic style of the 1860s onwards was constructed under the influence of Parisian thought, such as the historicism advocated by Viollet-le-Duc, it is important to stress, as has been done throughout this chapter, that this did not include ‘proto-national’ elements that hark back to historic Armenian architecture. Instead these churches show the demonstration in public of the identities of the architects and the local Armenian communities as the ‘faithful community’ even into the last decades of the nineteenth century.

What these Armenians may have done behind closed doors is another issue of course. The afore-mentioned theatrical performances in Diyarbakır, for instance, were of a nature “to stimulate hopes of a new Armenian nationality” such as a tragedy about the ancient wars between the Armenians

and Persians, and singing the hymn of liberty.77 Even Serkis Balyan, according to Ottoman docu-mentation, was investigated in 1896 for alleged activities as a ‘mischief maker’ (ermeni fesadı) and relations with the Hunchak leader Mihran Damadyan (1863–1945). However, it is hard to believe that Serkis Balyan would have made the patriotic ‘Ottoman Renaissance’ style—and even implemented a version of this into his church commission in Antep—as well as engaging him-self in other activities such as the establishment of his Ottoman Company for Public Works, without some kind of sincere personal attachment to Ottomanism. This only seems to have faltered much later on in the 1890s after Serkis Bey had been investigated for embezzlement and had per-haps himself turned from what some would term as a ‘collaborator’ to a ‘comrade’.

77 National Archives, FO/1951/1211, Kurdistan Consulate, Diyarbakır, Jan 17 1879, 113.

IDENTITY AND STYLE: ARMENIAN-OTTOMAN CHURCHES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

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