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Fener is a neighborhood on the southern shore of the Golden Horn in Istanbul, nestled between Ayakapı and Balat. It’s full of charming Greek buildings and a handful of Orthodox churches.
Introduction to Fener
Fener is a Turkish transliteration of the Greek word for the neighborhood, Fanari (Φανάρι), which means “lantern”. After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, Fener, also called Phanar, became the main Greek district of the city. The inhabitants were called Phanariotes and many served the Sultan. Wealthy Phanariotes often became governors of Ottoman provinces in the Balkans and Greece.
Since 1600, the neighborhood has been the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which is covered in another post. Every January 6, on the Feast of the Epiphany, the Patriarch performs the Blessing of the Waters. He then tosses a cross into the Golden Horn and swimmers race to see who can fetch it first.
When I moved to Istanbul in 2010, Fener was a run-down neighborhood on the verge of becoming a slum, but it has sprung back to life. It’s now a pleasant place to explore.
While visiting Fener, keep in mind the part of the neighborhood nearest the Golden Horn is flat while the rest is full of steep hills. To get to some of the major highlights, such as the Phanar Greek Orthodox College, be prepared to climb some of these hills.
Getting to Fener
The easiest way to get to Fener is to take the T5 tram line that runs from Eminönü to Alibeyköy. It’s also accessible by bus, with the 55T from Taksim the most likely one you’ll take. For a more scenic ride, you can hop on the hourly Golden Horn ferry line that runs from Karaköy and Üsküdar.
Church of St. Stephen
First, on the shores of the Golden Horn, is the Bulgarian Church of St. Stephen (Sveti Stefan Kilisesi). It’s one of the most interesting churches in Istanbul and was built by the local Bulgarian community.
In 19th century, Bulgarians would pray at churches under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which was dominated by Greeks. Stefan Bogoridi (1775-1859), an Ottoman Bulgarian diplomat, obtained permission from Sultan Abdülmecid I to build a Bulgarian Orthodox church.
Bogoridi donated his wooden house and converted it into a church, which opened on October 9, 1849. It became an important site of the Bulgarian National Revival. In fact, the Ottoman royal decree establishing the Bulgarian Exarchate was read there on February 28, 1870.
The church burned down and the community decided to replace it with a cast iron church. Ottoman Armenian architect Hovsep Aznavur (1854-1935) designed the building and R. Ph. Waagner of Austria won a contest to produce the prefabricated cast iron parts in 1893.
The parts, weighing 500 tons, were shipped from Vienna to Constantinople along the Danube River and through the Black Sea. The church took 18 months to build and was inaugurated on September 8, 1898.
The skeleton is made of steel and covered in metal panels attached together by nuts, bolts, rivets, and welding. It’s now one of the only surviving prefabricated cast iron churches in the world.
The Church of St. Stephen underwent a long renovation from 2011 to 2018, costing over 15,000,000₺. It reopened on January 8, 2018, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov present at the ceremony.
Cemetery at the Church of St. Stephen
In the church yard is a small cemetery. Among the burials is Hilarion of Makariopolis (1812-1875), an Orthodox bishop and one of the leaders of the struggle for an autonomous Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
Metoh Building
Across the street from the Church of St. Stephen is the Metoh Building. The three-story stone structure was built in 1850 and contains 25 rooms. It was used as a publishing house for over 20 Bulgarian newspapers and magazines. It also served as the first Bulgarian school in the city beginning in 1857 as well as a priest’s residence. The Bulgarian Theological Seminary used the building when it moved to Constantinople from Edirne in 1892. It was restored and opened as a museum of Bulgarian history in Istanbul on May 24, 2016. There’s no indication the museum is still operating (as of June 2025).
Fener House #3
In the median next to the Fener bus stop you’ll find Fener House #3. It’s the third of three Greek Fener homes (Fener evleri) that have been restored and opened for exhibitions as part of the Haliç Art (Haliç Sanat) program. Admission is free (as of June 2025) and it’s open daily except Mondays.
This house dates back to the 18th century and has three stories. The ground floor is on a rectangular plan and is covered with a barrel vault. The walls of the first floor are decorated with floral motifs. It’s topped by a barrel-vaulted ceiling and has niches on the walls.
The second floor also has a barrel-vaulted ceiling and niches on the walls. There are two windows on the west wall and one on the east wall.
Maraşlı Greek Primary School
A block south of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is the Maraşlı Greek Primary School (Özel Maraşlı Rum İlköğretim Okulu). It was founded by Grigorios Maraslis (1831-1907), a Greek philanthropist from the Russian Empire and long-time mayor of Odessa. The school opened in 1901 but Maraslis wasn’t happy with the architecture so he stopped funding it. The Ecumenical Patriarchate took over management of the school shortly after, donating income from trays passed during Sunday services to keep it afloat. There are no students today.
The Streets of Fener
Fener is a great place to wander around. As I mentioned earlier, in the heart of the neighborhood, you’ll find plenty of restaurants and cafés to sit and enjoy the atmosphere.
There are also plenty of 19th century homes to admire. Many have been restored while others are crumbling and in need of work. Some homes are painted in bright colors and many have bay windows. I’ll add a couple photos to show you the transformation of the neighborhood.
Many of these homes were built by the city’s wealthiest Greeks. Almost all of the Greek inhabitants have been replaced by migrants from Anatolia, but if you look closely on some of the houses, you can still see the mark they left on the neighborhood.
Metrology Church
Behind high walls on Vodina Street is the Metrology Church (Metochion of the Holy Sepulchre / Aya Yorgi Metakhion Kilisesi). It belongs to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and has no local community. It only opens for services once a year on April 23.
Metrology Church once contained the works of ancient Greek physicist and mathematician Archimedes, now known as the Archimedes Palimpsest. Around 950, a scribe in Constantinople copied Archimedes’ original scrolls onto parchment. They were taken to Jerusalem sometime after the Latin Sack of Constantinople in 1204.
In 1229, a priest in Jerusalem named Johannes Myronas was looking for spare parchment to reuse. He erased and overwrote the works with a prayer book. They were kept at the Holy Lavra of Saint Sabbas (Mar Saba) through at least the 16th century and eventually found their way back to Constantinople sometime before 1840.
The parchments were rediscovered at the Metrology Church in 1906 by Danish historian Johan Heiberg, the world’s foremost expert on Archimedes at the time. Sometime in the 1920s, they were stolen from the church library and smuggled out of the country. They were allegedly purchased by Marie Louis Sirieix, a French businessman and traveler, who stored them in his cellar.
The parchments reappeared in 1998 and were sold for US$2 million at a Christie’s auction in New York. They’re currently stored at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.
Church of the Virgin Paramythia
Around the block on Çimen Street are the ruins of the Church of the Virgin Paramythia, which was built around 1578 and served as the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople from 1587 to 1597. Among the church’s congregation were the aristocratic Cantacouzinos, Soutzos, and Ghikas families. It burned down three times, in 1640, 1729, and again at the end of the 18th century. The church was rebuilt in the mid-19th century and completely destroyed by fire again in 1970. It’s been undergoing reconstruction since December 2023 (as of June 2025).
Dimitrie Cantemir Museum
At the bottom of Merdivenli Mektep Street is the Dimitrie Cantemir Museum, which doubles as a café. The house is supposedly where Moldavian prince, historian, writer, philosopher, and musician Dimitrie Cantemir (1673-1723) lived during his time in Constantinople from 1687 to 1710. Apparently, staff is rude and yells at people for taking photos without purchasing anything, and the food is bad and overpriced. I look forward to checking it out on my next visit!
Merdivenli Mektep Street
Merdivenli Mektep Street is a colorful stairway leading up to a few more points of interest in Fener. It’s a popular photo stop for tourists.
The Water Diviner House
At the top of Merdivenli Mektep Street is the house used by Russell Crowe’s character in The Water Diviner. Keep in mind it’s a private home and the owner might not be too happy with the attention.
Ioakeimeion Girls’ High School
Across from the house is the Ioakeimeion Girls’ High School (Ιωακείμειον Παρθεναγωγείον / Yuvakimyon Rum Kız Lisesi). This former Greek girls school, officially the National Ioakeimeion Girls’ High School of Constantinople (Εθνικόν Ιωακείμειον Παρθεναγωγείον Κωνσταντινουπόλεως), was founded by Patriarch Joachim II (1802-1878) to aid in the education of girls from low-income Ottoman Greek families. He donated the land in 1876 to construct a building and his successor, Joachim III (1834-1912), laid the foundation in 1879. Classes began in 1882 and the last students graduated in 1988. It officially closed for good in 2010 due to lack of students and the dwindling Greek population in Istanbul.
The building sits hauntingly behind a high concrete wall topped by a barbed wire fence. The first few times I walked by, there was a sign with the Turkish name of the school atop the main gate.
On the side of the property, there’s another gate with an inscription above and the year 1733 is etched into it. It’s not related to the school but it was an interesting find.
Art Exhibition by Kalliopi Lemos
I had walked past the school several times, but when my friend George was visiting from Chicago, the gates were peculiarly opened. A banner hung outside announcing a special art exhibition taking place. We curiously walked inside.
Kalliopi Lemos, an artist from Oinousses, Greece, appropriately chose this venue for her exhibition, I Am I, Between Worlds and Between Shadows. It ran from September 11 to November 10, 2013, and was open daily except Mondays, 11am to 6pm. According to her website:
“The exhibition is explicitly conceived for the ongoing global consideration of the status of women and children and the upholding of their self-respect and human dignity. The artist delves into a world of alchemy, myth and dream to conjure up sculptural figures and a sound installation that invite us to re-evaluate our understanding of the world, the womens place in it and their representation within it.“
Each classroom contained a sculpture of an animal that is somewhat human, but showing a strong element of pain and suffering. On the desks were newspaper articles about violence against women and children. The sound installation complemented the experience by providing the voices of school girls.
Exploring the Ioakeimeion Girls’ High School
While the exhibition itself was interesting and provocative, it was the rare opportunity to explore the school that initially drew us in. The rooms are preserved as they were in 1988, complete with paint peeling off the walls and the faint musty smell of an unkempt building.
Photos of the staff and the last class to attend the school – a mere 3 students – are posted on the wall. Charts document enrollment from the early years to its heyday of 590 students in 1910, to 260 in the 1940s, and ultimately its uneventful end.
From the schools founding until 1923, it was directly under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. After the establishment of the Turkish Republic, however, the Church was forbidden to participate in the administration of education. From that point on, classes were only allowed in Turkish. Looking closely at the labels on the doors, written in Turkish, you can see the Greek lettering painted over to reflect this strict government policy. Inside one of the rooms, old maps and materials used while the school was operating were still in place.
Views from the School
Finally, the sweeping view of the Golden Horn and the Fener neighborhood from the rear classrooms provided a startling contrast. A once wealthy area with a heavy Greek minority living in beautifully constructed homes, it’s now populated by migrants from eastern Turkey who filled the void of the Greeks that were either forced or chose to leave. Outside the school, a very different life devoid of its vibrant and colorful Greek past continued, while inside the building, remaining silent and shuttered, the voices of Constantinople Greeks echoed through its halls.
Church of St. Mary of the Mongols
A few steps away is the Church of St. Mary of the Mongols (Παναγία Μουχλιώτισσα). It’s the only Byzantine church to remain in the hands of the Orthodox community after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. In fact, the last resistance of the Greeks against the invading Ottomans took place near the church, earning it the nickname Bloody Church (Kanlı Kilise).
The church was founded in the 7th century by a daughter of Byzantine Emperor Maurice. It was dedicated to Saint Eustolia. In 1281, the illegitimate daughter of Emperor Michael VIII, Maria Palaiologina, returned to Constantinople after being away for 15 years. She was married to Abaqa, Khan of the Mongols. Maria rebuilt the church, retired, and died there, and the church has been known as St. Mary of the Mongols ever since.
Inside the church are firmans from Mehmed II and Bayezid II protecting it from conversion to a mosque. It’s usually closed to the public, but if you ring the bell, the caretaker may let you in. I’ve been inside once but didn’t take any photos.
Church of St. George Potiras Antifonitis
Following the winding streets behind the Church of St. Mary of the Mongols leads to the Church of St. George Potiras Antifonitis (Ἅγιος Γεώργιος Ἀντιφωνητὴς). It was built in 1830 and restored in 1998 although the church may date back to at least 1648. Unfortunately, there was no answer when we rang the bell.
St. Paraskevi Holy Spring
Hidden on Baki Dede Street, you’ll find the St. Paraskevi Holy Spring (Ayıya Paraskevi Ayazması). It’s protected by a small structure.
Where to Eat in Fener
With the recent resurgence, you’ll find plenty of spots to eat or have a coffee. I’ve had lunch at a couple of them.
Barba Vasilis
Barba Vasilis is a Greek taverna in Fener, just a block from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. We arranged a lunch there for a group of 23 and enjoyed both the service and food. Our group also loved the chance to write their names on the wall.
For lunch, we had several meze dishes including grilled octopus followed by a choice of chicken, beef, or fish as a main course. Dessert was a type of halva with ice cream.
Faro Caffé
Also in Fener, a few steps from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, is Faro Caffé. They offer a full menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with a good variety of both international and Turkish food. Sitting in the covered terrace is enjoyable.
I’ve stopped in a few times for coffee and gözleme as well as a chicken wrap. Each time, I was satisfied with the quality, price, and friendly service.
