41.029071°N 28.939828°E / 41.029071; 28.939828 The Odalar Mosque (Turkish: Odalar Câmîi, meaning "the mosque of the barracks" after the nearby accommodations of the married Janissaries established in this quarter in the 18th century. Also: Kemankeş Mustafa Paşa Câmîi) was an Ottoman mosque in Istanbul.^[1] The building was originally a Byzantine-era Eastern Orthodox church of unknown dedication.^[1] In 1475, after the Fall of Constantinople (1453), it became a Roman Catholic church, dedicated to Saint Mary of Constantinople, until finally it was converted into a mosque by the Ottomans in 1640.^[1] The mosque was destroyed by fire in 1919, and since then has fallen into ruin.^[1] As of 2011, only some walls remain, hidden among modern buildings.

Quick Facts Former names, General information ...

Odalar mosque
Odalar Câmîi
The Mosque seen from East with Kariye Mosque in the background after the fire of 1919
Location in the Fatih district of Istanbul
Former names	Santa Maria di Costantinopoli
General information
Status	Destroyed
Type	Church
Architectural style	Middle Byzantine - Comnenian
Address	Müftu Sokaĝi 20-22
Town or city	Istanbul
Country	Turkey
Coordinates	41.029071°N 28.939828°E / 41.029071; 28.939828
Destroyed	July 2nd, 1919
Technical details
Structural system	Cross-in-square

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The ruins of the building lie in Istanbul, in the district of Fatih, in the neighborhood of Salmatomruk, not far from Edirne Kapı (the ancient Gate of Charisius), more or less halfway between the Chora Church and the Fethiye Mosque.^[2] The few remains lie in a courtyard and can be accessed through modern blocks built on Müftu Sokaĝi 20-22.^[2]

As mentioned above, several constructive phases can be recognized in the building during the Byzantine period. The first church, erected in the middle Byzantine age, had an almost square plan (about 11.65 m x 10 m ) with three apses, and was oriented toward the East.^[1] In 1935, only the tripartite sanctuary and the Bema were still visible.^[14] The church was built on a basement composed of 24 vaulted rooms and a vaulted crypt with an apse, which is supposed to have been a chapel containing relics.^[15] These rooms had at first a profane usage, later they were used as burial place^[4] and finally as a cistern.^[16]

The second church, erected at the end of the twelfth century, used also 16 small rooms of the abandoned first church's basement as substructure. The masonry was made of stone and bricks, and was erected with the technique of the recessed brick,^{[9][17][18][19]} typical of the Byzantine architecture of the middle period.^[20] In this technique, alternate courses of bricks are mounted behind the line of the wall, and are plunged in a mortar's bed. Due to that, the thickness of the mortar layers is about three times greater than that of the bricks layers. In this building, three or four rows of bricks alternate with single rows of stones,^[18] and the bricks are arranged to form several patterns.^[19]

The second church was of the cross-in-square type with an almost square naos about 10.5 m wide: it had four columns sustaining the dome through pendentives, three apses - the central one having a polygonal shape -^[1] and a narthex embracing the edifice on the west and north sides.^[13][17] The dome was about 4.4. m wide, lay on a drum and was adorned with frescoes.^[13] East of the naos lay a tripartite sanctuary composed of a bema flanked by a prothesis and a diakonikon.^[21] The floor of the new church was 3.3 m above that of the first church.^[1] The edifice can be described as a middle-sized Byzantine church, similar to the nearby Church of Christ Pantepoptes.^[22]

From a relation of Pietro Demarchis, bishop of Santorini, who visited Istanbul in 1622, we know that at that time the columns of the church had been taken away by the Turks and substituted with wooden pillars, and that the dome was covered with frescoes.^[10] Moreover, part of the building was already menacing ruin.^[10] Just after the conversion to mosque, to the building were added a mihrab, a minbar and a minaret. After the fire of 1919, the building fell into ruin (the roof collapsed and the minaret crashed already in the 1820s), but luckily it was thoroughly studied and surveyed by the German Archaeologist Paul Schatzmann in 1934/1935.^[23] According to the Greek scholar Alexandros G. Paspates, in the East part of the basement of the Mosque sprung a water source (Greek: αγίασμα, hagíasma, Turkish: ayazma) dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, abandoned for a long time.^[9]

During the excavation of 1934/1935 up to four mortar layers covered with frescoes on blue background were uncovered.^[4][9] A fresco representing a Madonna on Throne with angels was found in the crypt.^[17] In the basement rooms were found fragments of paintings having as subject funerary themes.^[24] In the inferior church were discovered two deesis, a fresco representing the soldier Saint Mercurius - of unparalleled technique among the known Byzantine works of this age - and prophets.^[17] These paintings were executed either in the tenth or in the middle of the eleventh century, belonging so to the first church. The diakonikon of the second church was adorned with frescoes showing saints and episodes of the Life of the Virgin.^[17][24] The best preserved frescoes (among them Saint Mercurius) were detached, restored and are on display at the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul.^[9]