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The Bodrum Mosque (Bodrum Camii) is a former Byzantine church that was converted to a mosque by the Ottomans. It sits two blocks south of the Laleli Mosque in the Laleli neighborhood of Istanbul.
Origins of the Building
The Bodrum Mosque was originally built in the 10th century as the Myrelaion Church (Eκκλησία του Μυρελαίου) by Byzantine Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos (870-948), an Armenian Byzantine naval commander who took control of the government.
The church was part of Romanos’ Myrelaion Palace, which was built atop a 5th century rotunda converted to a cistern. The rotunda happened to be the second largest of the ancient world after the Pantheon in Rome. Romanos intended to use the church as a burial place for his family.
Romanos turned the palace into a nunnery before he was deposed and exiled as a monk on the island of Proti (now Kınalıada). He died in June 948 and was buried at the Myrelaion Church with his wife Theodora (d. 922) and his son and co-emperor Christopher (d. 931). This interrupted a six century old tradition of Byzantine emperors being buried at the Church of the Holy Apostles (now the site of the Fatih Mosque).
The church was destroyed by fire in 1203 during the Fourth Crusade and abandoned during the Latin occupation of Constantinople. It was restored at the end of the 13th century by the Palaiologos dynasty.
History as a Mosque
After the Fall of Constantinople, the Myrelaion Church was converted into a mosque around 1500 by Mesih Pasha (1443-1501). He was a Byzantine Greek with royal blood and possibly the nephew of the last emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos. He had been conscripted into the devşirme system and later served as Grand Vizier under Sultan Bayezid II.
The Bodrum Mosque was damaged by fires in 1784 and 1911, when it was abandoned again. It was excavated in 1930 by English archaeologist David Talbot Rice (1903-1972). The Istanbul Archaeology Museums restored the exterior walls from 1964 to 1965, and another restoration in 1986 saw it reopened as a mosque. The cistern hosted shops for many years but is now used as a prayer hall for women.
Architecture of the Bodrum Mosque
The Bodrum Mosque was built entirely out of bricks and sits on a foundation made of bricks and stone. It’s made up of a narthex, nave, and bema covered by barrel vaults. An exonarthex once existed but it was replaced by a wooden portico.
The nave is separated by four piers, which the Ottomans used to replace the original columns. The central nave is topped by a dome with a drum containing arched windows. The interior was once decorated with marble and mosaics that haven’t survived.
