Volume 6 Number 1 March 2013 14 The Bulgarian St. Stefan church in Istanbul: an architectural project from 1890s and its multifunctional application in Bulgaria Blagovesta Ivanova 1 Abstract The paper analyses and compares some architectural projects connected with the construction of Bulgarian St. Stefan church in Istanbul. It views the theoretical and practical possibilities for their implementation in Bulgaria after the Liberation. It examines the architectural project of Fossati brothers, the unknown project of Antoin Perpignani and the first architectural project of the Istanbul architect with Armenian origin Hovsep Aznavur, with which he won the competition for a Bulgarian church in Istanbul in 1888. After a decision for a constructive change in the conception of the building, the projects were proposed to be implemented in Bulgaria, thanks to Bulgarian diplomats. During the same year, the projects were proposed to be used for a construction of a church at the place where the temple St. Alexander Nevsky was to be built. Another idea was the projects to be used as plans for construction of other temples in Bulgaria. The facts and the conditions for the implementation of the projects were analyzed and the possible churches for which the project was used as a prototype were looked for in the architectural works on Aleksi Nachev. The reviewed and examined documents lead to the conclusion that the projects by Fossati, Perpignani, Aznavur and Nachev are linked and they were important for the construction of temples in Bulgaria after the Liberation. Keywords – Bulgarian church St. Stefan in Istanbul, architectural projects by Gaspare and Giusepe Fossati, Antoine Perpignani, Hovsep Aznavur. I. INTRODUCTION The orthodox church of St. Stefan in Istanbul is situated near the Golden Horn in the historical part of the peninsula between the Fener and Balat districts. Now it is a monument of national importance in the Republic of Turkey, and is under the supervision of the Bulgarian Churches Foundation in Istanbul. In the first part of 19 c. when the Ottoman Sultan recognized the rights of Christian population in the Empire, Bulgarians who lived in the city decided to build their own temple. 1 Blagovesta Ivanova – Assoc. Prof. PhD Department of Urbanism Theory and History of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture at the Higher School of Civil Engineering, Sofia. In 1849 they asked Stefan Bogoridi – a high-ranking Bulgarian in the administration of the Ottoman Empire to help them with the creation of an architectural project for the temple. At that time the wooden srtucture was reconstructed for a church. Picture 1. The steel church of St. Stefan in Istanbul, 1898 II. THE ARCHITECTURAL PROJECT BY GASPARE AND GIUSEPE FOSSATI In 1850 the Bulgarians decided to construct a new church. Its designers are the brothers Gaspare and Giusppe Fossati who are from swiss-italian origin. The architectural scheme of projected in 1857-1858 stone temple is Byzantine. It is three apse central domed basilica with four callottes (blind domes) placed in the east and the west parts of the naos. The location of the domes shows the evolution of the architectural plan from the Greek cross. The dimensions of the temple are: length of 28,5 x width of 20,9 and the height of the dome is 21,85 archines.[1] As it is known, one construction archin is 0,758 ɦ, therefore, the dimension of the church is 21,60 х 15,84 х 16,56 m. The temple was not constructed.