page_title: Church of Saint Benoit, Istanbul
section_title: Architecture and interior
hierarchical_section_title: Church of Saint Benoit, Istanbul / Architecture and interior
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Clocher de l'église St. Benoît à Istanbul
context_page_description: Saint Benoit is a Roman Catholic Church in Istanbul, Turkey, important for historical reasons. Established in 1427, the shrine is the oldest Catholic church of Istanbul still in use.
context_section_description: The church has the entrance on Kemeraltı Caddesi, and can be reached by a  staircase leading uphill. The complex leans on a terrace, perhaps part of the Byzantine cistern which once lay nearby. During the Ottoman age the site became a fruit garden, and was then known under the name Çukurbostan ("Hollow Garden"). Originally the small church with three naves had only one dome (the two over the side aisles are later additions), an atrium and a gallery, while the interior was decorated with much admired mosaics depicting the life and passion of Christ. The rectangular building is oriented in direction southwest-northeast and has an entrance on the west side with an atrium whose columns and capitals are almost totally Byzantine spolia. The edifice's brickwork is made of alternate rows of stones and bricks, and the three naves are covered by groin vaults. The main and the south naves originate from the 1752 restoration, while the north one has been erected during the 1871 reconstruction. The first two naves end to the east with small chambers covered with domes.  It is possible that the southernmost of these chambers is still a remain of an ancient Byzantine church. The portal on Kemeraltı Caddesi and the bell tower with square plan and crenelated moulding, originally a watch tower, come both from the fifteenth century. In the interior, several inscribed gravestones from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries remember wealthy Levantine families, church's benefactors, and French Ambassadors. In the church were among others buried the Croatian noblewoman Jelena Zrinska and her son, the Hungarian aristocrat Francis II Rákóczi, both dead in exile in the Ottoman Empire.
caption: Detail of the bell tower, originating from the fifteenth century
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