Little Hagia Sophia: Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus
Why is it significant?
Walk through the quiet garden courtyard, past the small cemetery and the fountain, and stand beneath the modest dome. It feels like a village mosque. But this building is older than Hagia Sophia, and it was ordered by the same man.
Key Facts
| Place | Little Hagia Sophia: Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus |
|---|---|
| Address | Küçük Ayasofya, Küçük Ayasofya Caddesi No:20, 34122 Fatih/İstanbul, Türkiye |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.00270, 28.97220 |
| Part of Walk | Constantinople Underfoot: Byzantine Istanbul Beneath Sultanahmet |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk through the quiet garden courtyard, past the small cemetery and the fountain, and stand beneath the modest dome. It feels like a village mosque. But this building is older than Hagia Sophia, and it was ordered by the same man.
It was built between around 527 and 536 by Justinian and the empress Theodora as the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, two Roman soldiers martyred for their faith. Legend says that the young Justinian, accused of plotting against the emperor Anastasius, was saved from execution when the two saints appeared to the emperor in a dream and spoke up for him. The church, so the story goes, was his thank-you.
Look up at the gallery and find the band of carved Greek letters running around the room. It is a long dedication naming Justinian and Theodora, still in place after almost fifteen centuries. The plan is an octagon set inside an irregular square, with a dome on eight piers, and many historians see in it a rehearsal, a smaller experiment with the ideas that came together in Hagia Sophia only a few years later.
Justinian had lived next door, in the Palace of Hormisdas, before he became emperor, and this church was joined to that palace. Around 1500, under Sultan Bayezid the Second, the chief eunuch of the palace, Hüseyin Ağa, converted it into a mosque, and he lies buried in the courtyard. The cells around the courtyard became a medrese, and the old church took the affectionate name Küçük Ayasofya, Little Hagia Sophia.
The railway line just beyond its walls, together with earthquakes, shook the old building for more than a century, and it came close to serious danger before a long restoration finished in 2007. Now walk down to the coastal road and turn left along the old sea walls. A palace is hiding inside them.