Molla Zeyrek Mosque

About Molla Zeyrek Mosque

Religious building from the Byzantine Empire period

Zeyrek Mosque, or Molla Zeyrek Mosque, historically the Monastery of the Pantokrator, is a large mosque on Fazilet Street in the Zeyrek quarter of Fatih, Istanbul, overlooking the Golden Horn from its hilltop. The building is made up of two former Byzantine churches and a chapel joined together: the monastery church built in 1118, a public church added around 1136, and between them a chapel that served as an imperial mausoleum. It is the best surviving example of Middle Byzantine architecture in Constantinople and, after Hagia Sophia, the largest Byzantine religious building still standing in Istanbul. After the Ottoman conquest it became a mosque and madrasa, taking the name of the scholar Molla Zeyrek who taught there, and it escaped major alteration, so it preserved its architectural character. Following a long restoration it reopened for worship, and today it is a working mosque in which Byzantine arches and domes frame an Ottoman mihrab and minbar, while its decorated marble floors are among the rarest survivals of the Byzantine period. Less than a kilometre to the south-east stands Eski Imaret Mosque, another Byzantine church turned mosque, and to the east of the complex a restored Ottoman konak operates as a restaurant and tea garden called Zeyrekhane, with wide views over the Golden Horn.

Where:

Istanbul, Türkiye