Fener and Balat
Two Golden Horn Neighbourhoods Holding The Ecumenical Patriarchate Of Constantinople, The Iron Built Bulgarian Church Of St Stephen And The City'S Oldest Synagogues · Istanbul, Istanbul
Two neighbourhoods run along the Golden Horn inside the land walls, and for centuries they were where Istanbul's Greeks and Jews lived. Fener still holds the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the senior see of Eastern Orthodoxy, whose patriarch is first among equals for some two hundred million Orthodox Christians worldwide - it is a modest walled compound with a cathedral inside and a main gate that has been welded shut since a patriarch was hanged from it in 1821. Above it stands the Phanar Greek College, an enormous red-brick school. In Balat are the city's oldest synagogues and the Bulgarian church of St Stephen, which was cast in iron in Vienna in 1898 and shipped down the Danube in pieces. The painted houses that made these streets famous on the internet are the least interesting thing here, and some of the paint is recent. Walk down from Chora rather than up from the water.
Fener ve Balat Mahalleleri, Golden Horn, Fatih, Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkiye
The neighbourhoods are lived in and open at all hours. The Patriarchate keeps daytime visiting hours around its services. The Bulgarian St Stephen church keeps its own hours. THE SYNAGOGUES NEED PERMISSION ARRANGED IN ADVANCE through the Jewish community and cannot be visited on spec. Cafes and antique shops run through the day; the quarter is quiet on Sunday mornings.