A. KORITSKY

Sobkor of the magazine "Asia and Africa Today" in Turkey

S. KORITSKY

Press Attache of the Russian Embassy in Turkey

The small town of Iznik, which is hardly noticeable today, but has played an important role in the history of Orthodoxy, has now become one of the most important geographical points on the Christian map of Turkey. Walking through its streets is like moving from one historical era to another. The original name is known to anyone who has looked in history textbooks - Nicaea, the city of two Ecumenical councils, the capital of three states...

The road runs through mountainous terrain along the shore of Lake Iznik, which has spread in a tectonic depression with an area of 310 square kilometers.km. Fishing continues to be one of the main activities of residents and nearby villages.

In ancient times, the lake was known as Ascanius - after the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas, the legendary ancestor of the Roman imperial family of the Julii. The lake is also mentioned in ancient Greek myths: allegedly, the god of winemaking Dionysus liked to bathe in its waters together with the nymphs. The famous traveler Evlia Celebi, who visited here in 1648, wrote in the "Book of Travels" about the abundance of fish in Ascania. He also noted with surprise that the locals wash their clothes here, do not use soap, and the laundry is still perfectly cleaned. Linen in the lake, of course, is no longer washed, although the water is still crystal clear today.

NICAEA-DAUGHTER OF ANTIPATER

...The history of Nicaea-Iznik begins long before the birth of Christianity. In the city's archaeological museum, which its director Yusuf Demirji kindly agreed to give us a tour, you can find out that human settlements appeared here as early as the third millennium BC and the city had a different name - Ankore or, according to another version, Helicore. It was destroyed by local tribes of the Mysians, who inhabited the western part of Asia Minor in ancient times. After the death of Alexander the Great, one of his generals, Antigonus I the One-Eyed, who controlled the region from about 320-315 BC, restored the city and named it in his honor - Antigonia. However, already in 301 BC, the army of Antigonus was defeated by a coalition of Diadochi. The most powerful person in it was Lysimachus, who renamed the city Nicaea in honor of his wife Nicaea.

In the third century BC, Nicaea was one of the most important cities of the ancient kingdom of Bithynia, which at that time was in its heyday. Strabo later called Nicaea the capital of Bithynia, which is also confirmed by inscriptions on coins discovered here, but it is known that later the capital was moved to Nicomedia (modern Izmit), and these two cities disputed the right to be the capital for a long time.

Located at the crossroads of trade routes, Nicaea retained its status as an important strategic point during the Roman period. The city flourished: new walls, gates, temples, a theater, and baths were built. It was then that the city acquired a Roman layout, which has been preserved to this day: almost all the streets of Iznik cross each other at right angles, and in those days you could see all the gates from the geometric center of the city.

The eastern gate has a Latin inscription that says it was built by the proconsul in 123 BC after an earthquake. The Trajan - era theater (98-117 AD), the obelisk (1st century AD) located not far from the city, as well as the stone bridge over which the caravans of the Great Silk Road passed, remind of the Roman era in Iznik today.

"I BELIEVE..."

...There are olive groves on both sides of the road that runs along the lake. In autumn, farmers from all over Turkey come here for the harvest, carefully removing the greenish fruit by hand. Later collected dark purple

the fruits are used for oil production. Olive trees have been cultivated here since time immemorial. The oil made from their fruits, in addition to being used for food, served people for medical and hygienic purposes, as well as for performing the Orthodox sacraments of chrismation and unction. Oil was burned in the lamps of churches and chapels. Black olive is a favorite part of the painting of the famous Iznik ceramics.

After entering Iznik, we turn onto the embankment of Lake Iznik. The sign shows the Senate Palace.

...In June 325, more than 300 bishops, as well as many presbyters, deacons, and other delegates from all parts of the Roman Empire, gathered in the Senate Palace at the behest of Constantine the Great to discuss the tenets of the new Christian faith. The meeting lasted almost three months and went down in the history of Christianity as the First Ecumenical Council.

The Council condemned Arianism, which denied the fullness of the divinity of Jesus Christ, approved the doctrine that the Son is "consubstantial" with the Father, and recorded the advantages of bishops in the four largest metropolitanates: Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. A seven-point Creed was also drawn up, which later became known as the Nicene Creed. In 381, it was expanded and supplemented by the Second Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople, after which it became known as Nikeo-Constantinople (in Russia - Nikeo-Tsaregrad).

The foundations and foundations of the Senate walls, where the synclite meetings were held under the leadership of the emperor himself, which are now washed by the waters of the lake, bear little resemblance to its former greatness. Listening to the muezzin singing from the ancient Iznik mosque, it is difficult to imagine that here the Church fathers compiled the text of the foundations of the Orthodox faith, in which they tried to most accurately and fully express the entire Christian faith and whose words have been heard in all churches of the world for 17 centuries.

There is a city park on the embankment near the Senate. There is a small harbor nearby. We head to the city walls, behind which the town is hidden, and, having found the first gate, enter...

CAPITAL OF EMIRS AND BYZANTINE EMPERORS

The city was reputed to be an impregnable fortress: even under the Romans were built, and under the Byzantines significantly strengthened extant in excellent condition to this day walls with a length of 4970 m. In some places, they are built in several rows, sometimes reach a height of 10 meters and have 114 powerful towers, 4 main and 12 secondary gates around the perimeter. In many places there are visible columns, other architectural fragments with Greek inscriptions, the remains of ancient buildings of earlier periods, which were actively used in the construction of walls. Nicaea was also protected by a wide moat filled with water. An Arab attempt to take the city by storm in the seventh century ended in failure. This task was also not easy for the "conqueror of Anatolia" Suleiman Kutlumush, who captured the city after much effort in 1078 and became the head of the Emirate of Nicaea, or rather the Iznik Emirate (it was then that the city received the Turkish name Iznik). Christian Nicaea became the capital of the Muslim state of the Seljuk Turks.

Suleiman successfully repelled all attempts by the Byzantines to regain the city. After the death of the Emir in 1086, Iznik experienced difficult times, as troops sent by Suleiman's opponent, the Baghdad ruler Melikshah, besieged the emirate's capital twice, and both times-unsuccessfully.

No sooner had the city recovered from the military upheavals under the reign of Suleiman's son Kylych-Arslan I, than the inhabitants were almost taken by surprise by other Crusader conquerors who began military operations in Asia Minor with the siege of Nicaea (1097) and radically changed the fate of the city.

As we walked along the walls, I imagined the battle of Iznik: how the Crusaders stormed the city for seven weeks using ballistae and siege towers, how the besieged threw stones at the Crusaders from the walls, how the opposing armies covered each other with a hail of arrows, how the Crusaders tried to break through the walls with a battering ram... I remembered a miniature of the late eighteenth century: Crusaders loading their throwing machines with the heads of dead enemies and throwing them into the city.

The" savior " of Nicaea was then the Lake of Ascania, through which the besieged city received food and reinforcements. Nicaea was cut off from the water only after the Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos sent a fleet to help the Crusaders. The ships were then brought in on wagons, launched, and thus transferred to the sea.-

granted the besieged access to the lake (was it not this episode that prompted Sultan Mehmed Fatih in 1453 to drag warships overland from the Bosphorus to the Golden Horn, which was a decisive factor in the fall of Constantinople?). Only then did the defenders of Nicaea hand it over to the Byzantines, as they had previously secretly agreed with the Byzantine emperor. This saved the city from imminent looting. However, due to the Crusader attacks, the Emirate of Nicaea suffered heavy losses and temporarily lost its leading role among the Turkic political entities in Asia Minor. The capital was moved by Kilic-Arslan I to Konya.

After the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 and the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, Nicaea again became the capital of the Christian state - the Nicene Empire. During the lifetime of Emperor Theodore I Laskaris, the second majestic church of St. Tryphon in the city was built near the southern gate (another temple dedicated to this saint already existed near the northern gate, it was built a century earlier). Today, unfortunately, only ruins remain from them, which make it difficult to imagine once majestic religious buildings.

In March 1331 Iznik was besieged for the last time in its history and became part of the Ottoman state. And today you can see that under the Ottomans, the city experienced not the worst times. Mosques, madrassas, mausoleums, baths, imaret (canteen for the poor attached to the mosque), caravanserais were built. Iznik is home to the earliest Ottoman mosques, built in the Seljuk style of brick. One of them is the Haji Ozbek Mosque of 1332. The Kirghiz tomb (turbe), built on the orders of Orkhan Gazi (1331) on the site of an earlier burial of Kirghiz soldiers who fought in the Seljuk army, also recalls this period. By the way, their memory was honored in the spring of 2008 by a delegation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan headed by Minister E. Karaoayev.

The most active period of construction occurred during the reign of Sultan Murad II (mid-XV century) and the family of viziers of Chandarli (the family tomb is located here). Most of the structures built at that time still serve their intended purpose today. For example, one of the most beautiful mosques in the city - Yeshil Jami (i.e. "Green Mosque") continues to operate, and the archaeological museum is located in the restored building of the Nilufer Khatun Imaret, where more than 5 thousand exhibits belonging to different eras are displayed. And the baths of Sultan Murad II still receive daily customers.

HAGIA SOPHIA

However, the central building of Iznik is still not a mosque, as is typical for provincial Turkish cities, but a Christian church - the Hagia Sophia Church, turned into a museum and is the main historical monument of the city. It was here, according to many historians, that the seventh Ecumenical Council was held in 787, which restored icon veneration to the church. At the Council convened by Empress Irene, 367 church fathers gathered, thanks to whom the iconoclastic heresy was rejected. The feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, which is celebrated on the first Sunday of Great Lent, was also established at this Cathedral.

Then there was another one-the VIII Ecumenical Council in Constantinople. However, the mood by that time had gone so far that the Orthodox Church no longer recognized it as Ecumenical, and only the Western Church kept track of these councils in the future. And the history of Orthodox Ecumenical Councils began and ended here, in Nicaea.

Hagia Sophia was built in the IV century. It has survived to this day after several reconstructions. So, in 1065, it was badly damaged by an earthquake. After 1331, the church became a mosque, and in the 15th century it almost completely burned down. According to some researchers, the temple was restored after the fire under the leadership of the famous architect of the Ottoman Empire - Sinan.

The Hagia Sophia is still undergoing a major restoration. The building is covered with a roof, glass is inserted, interior finishing works are underway, and the mosaic is painstakingly restored. The old minaret, which rises to the left of the entrance to the temple, was also reconstructed. When agreeing on the restoration plan, the opinions of architects, historians and residents of the city about the minaret were divided: some were in favor of its restoration, others were against it. But the mayor of the city, Kadri Eryilmaz, put an end to the disputes, saying that the minaret is an integral part of the historical building, and therefore it needs to be restored.

By the way, some fragments of the famous Church of the Assumption, famous for its frescoes and mosaic coating, also remind of the Byzantine period in the city. It is noteworthy that the history of the temple destroyed in 1922 is studied according to the descriptions of scientists of the Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople, who recorded the interiors and interior decoration of the temple during one of the training expeditions in Asia Minor.

A Turkish provincial town is bustling with life around the Hagia Sophia. The city hall and other major local authorities are located nearby. It also connects the four main streets of the city, leading to an ancient gate on the outskirts of the city. There are many restaurants, all kinds of cafes, tea shops, various

small shops and, of course, small ateliers and shops of traditional ceramics, without which Iznik is impossible to imagine.

IZNIK SOUVENIR WORTHY OF A QUEEN

The history of Iznik ceramics dates back more than ten centuries. The turning point was back in 1514, when Sultan Selim I the Terrible captured Tabriz. He could not gain a foothold in Iran and was forced to withdraw to Anatolia. Leaving Tabriz, the Sultan took with him about a thousand families of the best local artisans, including skilled masters of pottery. They settled in Iznik, opened workshops, and passed down the secrets of their craft from generation to generation.

Amazing Iznik tiles were used to decorate the interiors of many mosques, palaces and mausoleums of the Ottoman Empire. In 1648, Evliya Celebi wrote that he saw in Iznik more than three hundred furnaces for making ceramic products. The remains of those furnaces have been preserved to this day - archaeological excavations are still being conducted here. Valuable examples of Turkish faience from Iznik can be found in many museums around the world, as well as in private collections. In Russia, old ceramic Iznik tiles can be seen in the back gardens of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Khoroshev -they were brought to Moscow in the time of Boris Godunov.

At the end of the 17th century. Iznik is losing its importance as a supplier of the Sultan's palace, and the center of ceramics production is moving to Kutahya. Local artisans began to go broke, and the secrets of making Iznik tiles of those times were lost.

"But not irrevocably," Adil Jan Guven, Chairman of the Iznik Ceramics Research and Development Society, proudly tells us. - In 1985, several masters of ceramic art opened their first studio here in order to revive the centuries-old tradition and restore Iznik to its former glory. In 1993, thanks to their efforts, our society was also created. Today, we have again achieved the high level of professionalism of our predecessors from the Ottoman Empire, and step by step, through trial and error, we have almost managed to uncover the secrets of their skill."

We walk with Mr. Guven through the modern studios located in the historic building of the Suleiman Pasha madrasah. There are plates, dishes, panels, bowls, and pitchers of various shapes, sizes, and shades. They are covered with polychrome paintings, which usually include stylized images of flowers, animals, and ships. My favorite colors are turquoise, red, and green.

According to Guven, now there are about 30 ateliers in the city, which also carry out orders from the United States, Canada, and other countries (by the way, you can also make an order via the Internet). It is not necessary to talk about exporting in large volumes, since real Iznik ceramic products are 100% manual labor-intensive work.

The studio employs 5-10 people: one or two masters - "mouth", the rest-apprentices, many of whom learn the basics of skill not only in practice in the studio, but also at the university. In 1995, Iznik opened a Higher School at the University of Uludag (Bursa), where the course "Making faience and ceramics"is taught. One of the young graduates, Kadir Yilmaz, opened his own studio with his classmate, but, according to him, it is difficult to survive in a serious competition with well-established craftsmen.

"In order for the product to become a masterpiece, it must be kept in the oven at a temperature of 950 degrees for at least 15 hours," Mustafa Chalyshkan tells us, " and the temperature must be adjusted so that the product does not crack. Then it should cool down for several months."

Iznik tiles were included in the exhibition dedicated to the 700th anniversary of the Ottoman Empire, which was shown in many countries. Now Iznik craftsmen carry out orders for interior decoration of mosques, as well as business centers in Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. And one of the Giant panels was presented as a gift to Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain during her stay in Turkey.

Mayor Kadri Eryilmaz is also interested in new projects aimed at reviving traditional Iznik art, restoring historical monuments, and improving the city's infrastructure. According to him, tourists from Russia are used to Antalya, although there are other places in Turkey where you can not only relax, but also get in touch with the history of the birth of Christianity. The mayor's plans have convinced us that Iznik has a great potential for the development of pilgrimage. And if you consider that Bursa, famous for its thermal springs and high-quality silks, is located not so far away, then it becomes obvious that Iznik can turn into an integral part of excursion programs. The mayor also plans to find a sister city in Russia from Moscow.

Leaving the city through the eastern gate, we pass by the so-called Barbarian or Pagan stone ("Berber" in Turkish), which is considered the tomb of the king of Bithynia and a colleague of the famous Hannibal Prusius II, as well as near the tomb of the preacher of Islam, the legendary fighter for the faith - "gazi" Sarah Saltuk. We never cease to be surprised at the wisdom of history-it was here, in a small Turkish town that has become the intersection of different eras, religions, stories, legends, the destinies of individuals and entire peoples, that the Symbol of the Christian Faith appeared, which today defines the lives of millions of people around the world...

Iznik - Ankara

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