page_title: Religion in Istanbul
section_title: Christianity
hierarchical_section_title: Religion in Istanbul / Christianity
caption_attribution_description: English: Bulgarian Orthodox Saint Stefan Church in Fener, Fatih Български: Българската православна църква „Свети Стефан“ в квартал Фенер на Истанбул, Турция
context_page_description: Religion in Istanbul covers the issue of religion in the city of Istanbul, Turkey.
  According to the 2000 census, there were 2691 active mosques, 123 active churches and 20 active synagogues in Istanbul; as well as 109 Muslim cemeteries and 57 non-Muslim cemeteries. Religious minorities include Greek Orthodox Christians, Armenian Christians, Catholic Levantines and Sephardic Jews. Some neighbourhoods have been known with their sizeable populations of these ethnic groups, such as the Kumkapı neighbourhood, which had a significant Armenian population, the Balat neighbourhood, which used to have a sizeable Jewish population, the Fener neighbourhood with a large Greek population, and some neighbourhoods in Nişantaşı and Pera, which had sizeable Levantine populations. In some quarters, such as Ortaköy or Kuzguncuk, an Armenian church sits next to a synagogue, and on the other side of the road a Greek Orthodox church is found beside a mosque.
  Istanbul was the final seat of the Islamic Caliphate, from 1517 to 1924, when the Caliphate was dissolved and its powers were handed over to the Turkish Parliament.
context_section_description: The city has been the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate since the 4th century AD, and continues to serve as the seat of some other Orthodox churches, such as the Turkish Orthodox Church and the Armenian Patriarchate. The city was formerly also the seat of the Bulgarian Exarchate, before its autocephaly was recognized by other Orthodox churches.
  Following the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II established the Millet System, according to which the different ethnic groups within Constantinople and the rest of the Ottoman Empire were to be governed by a group of institutions based on faith. For this purpose, Mehmed II also founded previously non-existent religious authorities such as the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1461. Earlier, the Byzantines considered the Armenian Church as heretic and did not allow the Armenians to have churches inside the walls of Constantinople. Several Armenian saints, such as Saint Narses, were exiled and imprisoned in the Princes' Islands near Constantinople, in the Sea of Marmara. With the Millet System, a great deal of the internal affairs regarding these communities were assigned to the administration of these religious authorities; such as the Ecumenical Patriarchate for the affairs of all Orthodox Christians, the Armenian Patriarchate for the affairs of the Armenian (and for some time also the Syriac) Christians, and later the Chief Rabbi for the affairs of the Jews.
  The everyday life of the Christians, particularly the Greeks and Armenians, living in Istanbul changed significantly following the bitter conflicts between these ethnic groups and the Turks during the Decline of the Ottoman Empire, which began in the 1820s and continued for a century. The conflicts reached their culmination in the decade between 1912 and 1922; during the Balkan Wars, the First World War and the Turkish War of Independence. The city's Greek Orthodox community was exempted from the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923 following the establishment of the Turkish Republic. However, a series of special restrictions and taxes during the years of the Second World War (see, e.g., the wealth tax Varlık Vergisi), and the Istanbul Pogrom of 1955 which caused the deaths of 15 Greeks and the injury of 32 others, greatly increased emigration from Istanbul to Greece. In 1964, all Greeks without Turkish citizenship residing in Turkey (around 12,000) were deported. Today, most of Turkey's remaining Greek and Armenian minorities live in or near Istanbul. The number of the Armenians in Istanbul today amount to approximately 40,000, while the Greek community amounted to slightly more than 2,000 at the beginning of the 21st century.
  Beside the mostly Catholic Levantines, who are the descendants of European (Genoese, Venetian and French) traders who established trading outposts during the Byzantine and Ottoman periods, there is also a small, scattered number of Bosphorus Germans. A number of places reflect past movements of different communities into Istanbul, most notably Arnavutköy (Albanian village), Polonezköy (Polish village) and Yenibosna (New Bosnia).
  There were more than 40,000 Catholic Italians in Istanbul at the turn of the 20th century, a figure which not only included the descendants of the local Genoese and Venetian merchants who lived here since the Byzantine and early Ottoman periods, but also the numerous Italian workers and artisans who came to the city from Italy during the 19th century. Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini came to Constantinople in 1832, and again in 1833. Garibaldi lived in Beyoğlu and taught Italian, French and Mathematics in the foreign schools of this district. Garibaldi also established the Società Operaia Italiana di Mutuo Soccorso on May 17, 1863, in Beyoğlu, and became its first President (Mazzini was the second President). The Società Operaia Italiana di Mutuo Soccorso is still active and is located in its original site, on a side street of İstiklal Avenue. The number of Istanbul's Italians decreased after the end of t
caption: Bulgarian St. Stephen Church built in Istanbul during Ottoman Empire.
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