Blachernae: The Church of the Virgin's Robe
Why is it significant?
Step through the gate into a quiet garden with trees and a small, low church at the back, almost like a village chapel. Yet this patch of ground was once one of the holiest places in the entire Byzantine world: Blachernae, the shrine of the Mother of God.
Key Facts
| Place | Blachernae: The Church of the Virgin's Robe |
|---|---|
| Address | Ayvansaray, 34087 Fatih/İstanbul, Türkiye |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.03850, 28.94270 |
| Part of Walk | Neighbours of the Golden Horn: Fener, Balat and Istanbul's Greek, Jewish, Armenian and Bulgarian Quarters |
| Generated | Generated |
Step through the gate into a quiet garden with trees and a small, low church at the back, almost like a village chapel. Yet this patch of ground was once one of the holiest places in the entire Byzantine world: Blachernae, the shrine of the Mother of God.
Around the middle of the fifth century, Empress Pulcheria began a great church here, over a sacred spring just inside the city walls, and it was completed under Emperor Leo the First. It became home to the robe of the Virgin, a relic said to have been brought from Palestine. Later the emperors built a palace on the hill right above, and under the Komnenos dynasty, Blachernae became the real centre of power in Constantinople.
In 626, while Emperor Heraclius was away fighting the Persians, an army of Avars and Slavs besieged the city. Tradition says the patriarch carried the Virgin's robe and her icon along the walls, the Slavic boats in the Golden Horn were destroyed right off this shore, and the city was saved. The Akathist, the great Orthodox hymn of thanksgiving to the Virgin, is linked by tradition to that deliverance, and it is still sung in Orthodox churches around the world.
The great church burned in 1434, just nineteen years before Constantinople fell. What you see now is a modest church built in 1867 over the same spring. Look for the ayazma itself, a basin of holy water from which Orthodox visitors still drink and fill small bottles to take home. Fifteen centuries of prayer, and it all comes down to one thin trickle of water.
The emperors' palace has not quite vanished, either. Outside, the land walls start their long climb away from the water. Follow them uphill... it is a steady climb, take your time... to the brick-and-marble façade of the last surviving Byzantine palace in the city.