home
introduction
images
plans
research & preservation
> State of Research
> State of Preservation
campaigns |
State of
Research
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| Despite some early hagiographical
references mentioning the episcopal church of Bizye, historical information
about the building is scant until the late nineteenth-century, when
several Greek authors mention the church and its dedication to Hagia
Sophia. The most important among these early authors is Savvas Ioannides,
whose comprehensive history of the city, written in 1886, mentions
the church as well as several other ecclesiastical buildings in its
proximity. Important details about the church are further recorded
by a certain G. Lampousiades, who served as the region's superintendent
of Antiquities during the Greek occupation of Eastern Thrace from
1920-22. Apart from a brief and superficial description of the church
in an article by Feridun Dirimtekin, the building did not receive
any scholarly attention until Cyril Mango devoted a short article
to it in 1968. Based on a painted inscription recorded in the notes
of Lampousiades and hagiographical information derived from the life
of St. Mary the Younger, he was the first to suggest a terminus ante
quem of ca. 900 for the construction of the church.
Mango later revised his view somewhat
in favor of a late eighth or ninth century date.
|
|
Based primarily
on formal analogies between the architecture of Hagia Sophia at Vize
and Late Byzantine churches of the 'composite type' in Mistra, Semavi
Eyice, on the other hand, suggested a date in the thirteenth or fourteenth
centuries.
Eyice's late dating has found
little support among scholars writing in more recent decades. In
a short, but detailed assessment of the church and its architecture,
Robert Ousterhout and Yıldız
Ötüken agreed with Mango on a date before the end of the ninth century.
Vincenzo Ruggieri, whose study on the architecture of the 'Dark Ages'
includes a comprehensive summary of the earlier literature on the
church, has likewise supported a ninth-century date. His observations,
however, remain general and do not contribute any new information.
The only scholars who have -- at least in part -- accepted Semavi
Eyice's late dating of the church, are Ayşegül Kahramankaptan
and Özkan Ertuğrul, who surveyed the church in the early 1990s
and published their results in the popular Turkish magazine Mozaik.
In their article, they suggested two main phases of construction
for the church, one dating to the the tenth, the other to the thirteenth
or fourteenth centuries.
|
 |
| State
of Preservation |
|
|
|
| Since the publication of Mango's
and Eyice's studies in the late 1960s, the building has suffered
dramatically from decades of neglect, heavy-handed restoration, and
repeated acts of vandalism and theft. The building's dilapidated
condition was already recognized in 1952/53, when the Vakıflar
Bölge Müdürlüğü in Istanbul made preparations for repairs on
the building. These, however, were never carried out. The church
started to deteriorate further after the building ceased to function
as a mosque in the late 1960s. Already a few years after the profanization
of the mosque, the picturesque wooden gallery over the narthex was
torn down or collapsed, leaving the narthex open to the elements.
While a restoration of the building was finally authorized and in
part carried out by the Vakıflar Bölge Müdürlüğü in the
early 1980s, the building continued to deteriorate over the last
two decades. |
|
The preservation of large patches
of fresco decoration in the interior as well as of numerous spolia
-- including fragments of the liturgical furnishings of the Byzantine
church -- remain a major concern. Even more problematic is the fact
that considerable amounts of water collect in the north aisle and
naos of the church. This is due in part to the insertion of drainage
pipes in the adjacent retaining walls, which allows rainwater from
the neighboring gardens to drain into the u-shaped corridors the
church proper. Threatening the sturctural stability of the building
more immediately, is the missing roof over the narthex. For the last
three decades, rainwater has seaped into the narthex vaults and washed
out the mortar between the stones. A collapse of the main narthex
vault is only years if not months away.
|
|
