On the afternoon of Thursday, January 5, the Honorable Mayor of Megalopolis, Mr. Ekrem İmamoğlu, inspected the renovation work on the Holy Temple of the Divine Ascension of Ypsomateon. As is well known, the Municipality under his leadership has undertaken the renovation of this historic temple. As is well known, the Municipality under his leadership has undertaken the renovation of this historic church.
The Honorable Mayor was welcomed by Metropolitan Maximos of Silivria, Supervisor of the Region of Ypsomathia, and the Church Committee of the Temple.
Below is a video from the Metropolitan Municipality of Constantinople, which undertook the renovation of the Holy Church of the Divine Ascension in Psomathia.
We are restoring Istanbul's forgotten, worn-out historical buildings one by one.
We are restoring our historic mosques, cemeteries, churches, fountains, cisterns, and walls to Istanbul. The Samatya Aya Analipsiz Church in Fatih is one of them. pic.twitter.com/TQh877cqrn
— Ekrem İmamoğlu (@ekrem_imamoglu) December 6, 2022
The Psomathia
A neighborhood of Istanbul, washed by the Sea of Marmara, known in Byzantine times as Theion Ypsoma. Psomathia for the Greeks from the Ottoman era to the present day, Samatya for the Turks.
Among other well-known personalities, Loxandra (the grandmother and heroine of M. Iordanidou's book) and the father of the poet Constantine Cavafy were born in Psomathia. Nowadays, of course, almost all of the Armenian and Greek inhabitants have disappeared. The feeling of abandonment is so strong that it exerts a special charm on the walker.
This neighborhood has always had a certain charm. This is confirmed by the testimony of French author Flaubert, who wrote in 1850 that the atmosphere here differed from other neighborhoods inhabited exclusively by Muslims, which were immersed in a sluggish lethargy. Here, on the contrary, girls with pretty hairstyles enjoyed the liveliness of the neighborhood at their windows and doorsteps, while groups of men gathered in cafes, drinking raki and creating a cheerful image of lightheartedness.
Source: The book by journalist and author Alexander Massaveta, who lives and works in Istanbul, entitled Going Back to Constantinople – Istanbul, a City of Absences. Essential reading for every visitor to Istanbul.
