Adnan Rashid – Hagia Irene- The Council of Constantinople
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And Topkapi Palace. It was a palace of
the sultans.
And
now it is a museum, and it is
one of the best museums in the world
with one of the best collections of Islamic
heritage as we will see later on. But
why are we standing here? If you look
behind me, there is a very
imposing structure,
and it is a basilica.
It is a church.
And why is this church so special?
This is where
the 2nd council of Nicaea took place.
In 381 CE, this is where
the doctrine of the trinity was finally formalized.
Okay? As we know it today. If you
Google the doctrine of the trinity, you will
see a definition
which most Christian in the world believe in
today. Okay? They believe there there is one
god and that one god consists of 3
persons.
God the father, god the son, God the
holy spirit.
So in the council of Nicaea, as we
discussed in ISNIC,
okay,
they discussed
only 2 persons, god the father and god
the son. The third person was not discussed
yet. Right? So there was a question mark
on the holy spirit.
The status of the holy spirit was determined
here.
Who is the holy spirit? The third
mysterious person
or entity mentioned repeatedly
in,
the gospels. Who is he? What is he?
Where is he? How is he? All those
points are discussed here, and then it was
finally declared
that, actually, the holy spirit is the 3rd
person of the trinity, the holy trinity that
came to be known later on, the holy
trinity, which is a Catholic church,
you know, upheld and imposed on the entire
Roman Empire. So at the time, the emperor
was Theodosius. Theo emperor Theodosius,
he made it into law
that anyone who
disagrees with the doctrine of the trinity will
be considered a heretic and will be treated
as such. So you could no longer have
another view on Jesus Christ or
Christian doctrine. You could not you could not
believe anymore that Jesus was lower than God
with capital g. He is God of God,
the God with capital g, basically.
Right? So if you believe
that Jesus was not god with capital g
and he was some
lower entity, someone below god, you would be
a heretic and you would be
killed
by the Roman,
you know, empire or Roman
establishment and Roman,
leaders
by their decrees and by their law. So
it was put into the law, and the
law is called the Theodosian Code.
The Theodosian Code, you can still read it.
It is there, and it's part of the
Theodosian code. If I'm not mistaken,
book 16, you'll find it there. Okay? That
these laws are there.
And all of this
all of that happened here in this structure.
Now it is now
currently
inside the Topkapi Palace complex, inside the walls
of the palace. And there here, the Ottomans
were storing their gunpowder.
Right? Not knowing,
I'm sure the Ottomans had no idea how
important this particular church was for the Christians.
Maybe the Christians did tell them. Maybe Christians
did explain to them how important this place
is. But because it was taken by force,
the city belonged to the sultan, and he
could do what he wanted. Right? But it
still stands as a church today. I don't
know if it was turned into a masjid,
but I think,
we can have a look. We cannot go
inside. We cannot go inside because it's a
separate
it's a separate building.
It was going through renovations.
We need a ticket to go in? Yes,
sir. Okay. Can we take a quick shot
inside? Yeah. You can take a quick shot
inside.
So this is
one of the most important
buildings in
Constantinople or in Istanbul.
Yes. It's called Hagia Irene. Hagia
Irene church or Saint Irene church. Okay?
The other one, the larger one is called
Hagia Sophia. This is called Hagia Irene. Okay?
So
this is a very important place, okay,
and one of the most, important buildings
in Istanbul, and it's a very big church.
In comparison to other churches in Istanbul,
it's, it's still smaller.
But,
when it comes to its importance, historically, it's
one of the most important spots in Christian
history. We saw
a, a candidate site, a potential site of
the Council of Nicaea,
which is underwater
now in the lake. We saw that one
and this is the second place where this
doctrine
was established. And now it is in Muslim
hands. Okay?
And the Christian doctrine was formalized there. The
those you can potentially, you can say this
is one of the holiest sites
for Christendom or Christianity in the world. Trinity
was not part of,
Byzantine.
No. It was. It was? All Christians.
All Christian denominations
except few smaller denominations believe in the trinity.
The the the Catholics, the Protestants, the Greek
Greek Orthodox, the Russian Orthodox, the the Syrian
Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox, all major,
Christian denominations
are unanimous on the doctrine of the trinity,
and it happened here.
Okay? It was born here. The doc and
there was about
350 years after
Jesus Christ.
So the doctrine wasn't given by Isa, by
Jesus Christ. It was given by these bishops
and and and in particular, there were 3
individuals called the Cappadocian
fathers.
Cappadocian fathers,
these three individuals actually pushed for the doctrine
of the trinity for it to be formalized.
No. No. Paul is long time ago. Paul
is, like, 300 years before this. Right? So
Cappadocian fathers
were
Basil of Caesarea.
Okay?
Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nissa. 3
Cappadocian fathers. These are the 3 individuals who
pushed for the doctrine of the trinity
in this time, 38381
CE,
and it was
finally formalized.
And then it was declared that
all Christians have to follow the doctrine of
the trinity. If you challenge it in any
shape or form, you will be killed. You
will be hunted.
Yes. This, the location, the first council of
Constantinople was an extension on the Council of
Nicaea.
This is why some people call it the
2nd Council of Nicaea, although it's the council
of Constantinople.
You're right. This is the council of Constantinople.
But the creed that was formalized here is
called Niceno Constantinopolitan
Creed.
Okay?
So it is called the Niceno Constantinopolitan
Creed. So when people say creed of Nicaea,
the creed of Nicaea is actually technically not
Nicene, because in Nicaea, only 2 people were
discussed.
The third person was
formalized or his status
was formalized here in 381. So
what happened here in 381
is called or the conclusion is called the
creed of Nicea. I hope that makes sense.
So, inshallah, we're gonna go to the palace
and talk more about it, inshallah. So it
so happens
that we found out we have the ticket
for this place. Our guide, Masha'Allah, just informed
us that we can enter this structure. So
we're gonna go inside and have a look.
Church of Saint Irene or higher Irene,
it was used as storage for gunpowder,
by the Ottomans, but it is a very
important
location.
Okay. Let's go.
I am very excited because I've never been
inside. Last time I came here, it was
being renovated.
Okay. Now look at this. Yeah. This is
Now you're happy? Yeah. Absolutely. I'm very happy
now because I where Here.
Right.
Yeah.
How are we gonna how are we gonna
hold it? Just wear it. Can I just
wear it? Where's the where's the mic? Mic
is attached. This is, like, attached Okay. Right
here. So can you guys hear me? Yes.
Can you hear me? Okay. Let's go.
So now we are inside this giant church,
and now now you can have an idea
what
what a structure this is. This is where
the council of Constantinople
took place.
All the bishops would have gathered here
in including including the 3 Cappadocian fathers,
Greg Gregory of Nissa, Gregory of Nazianzus,
and Basil of Caesarea.
No. No. I think they Yeah. They hold
this one Yeah. Not yet. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Because because it's probably shedding some No. That's
birds. Birds. Yeah. This is birds. Bird room.
Possibly.
But if you to Yeah. Mhmm. The dome
is still standing. There are cracks visibly. Yeah.
We can see cracks on the dome.
I hope it stays intact.
And last time we came here, it was
being prepared or repaired rather. Let's go. Let's
keep moving inshallah because we don't
have
Right.
Right. That white So those
right. And one atrium
that did So those Muslims who don't know
what this is, this is a very important
place
for Christianity.
The pillars and the columns sorry, the capitals
are actually
from the period.
Okay?
Okay.
Higher Irene
monument following the conquest
of Constantinople
Constantinople, the church was not converted into a
mosque, but rather into
an armory
for storing weaponry and booty, meaning that neither
its interior nor exterior had experienced
much in the way of any physical char
change.
One restoration
ex inscription dating from 17/26
during the period of Ahmed the third indicates
that the church was converted into Darul
is, Asliha Asliha Asliha, which is weaponry
weaponry museum. A second epitaph
dating from 17/44
on the portico
during the period of Sultan
Mahmud the first
indicates that the church had then undergone refurbishment
and was
reinstituted
as an armory again once again.
So, basically,
this giant structure, which was
a very important church in the history of
Christianity, was used as,
a storage for weaponry
to store arms. So what you would have
seen here, maybe guns, cannons, swords,
matchlocks, you know, things like that, All the
weapons of war.
You can see the decorations, the old decorations
from the time,
very imposing.
And you can see Greek written on very
top. Can you guys guys and we can
everyone can see Greek on top?
Yeah. On the very top strip, you can
see Greek written. Okay?
By the way, can you see the wall
on the wall? Yeah. That's
Okay. Let me say, like, you know, the
frescoes. Okay. The paintings. Paintings and images of
saints and important Christian figures. So The baptized.
Yeah. Right? So that's the, yeah.
Okay. That's I assume here. Yep. Evening.
So this is still in very much good
condition. Yeah. So
from us here in Istanbul, everyone,
this is higher Irene inside the compound of
Topkapi Palace. Very imposing structure. A lot of
people who come to Topkapi Palace, they just
simply walk past it without realizing its importance
and,
how important this is in Christian history. It's
from the Byzantine period, from the Roman period.
Look at those
carvings,
on the base of the column.
So it's a very imposing structure.
On that note, let's make a move to
Topkapi Palace, which is why we came here
in the 1st place. So as I said,
our itinerary is very dynamic. We are all
on a journey in Diana Jones.
So if something comes up for us to
explore, we will go and start digging as
well.