History of the church
Zappeion girls' school today stands at the former location of the wooden church built to honour Saint George (Agios Megalomartys Georgios Tropaiforos). This wooden church could barely accommodate the Orthodox needs for worship and the construction of an imposing stone-built church was decided.
On 25 February 1867, the building committee of the new church was appointed, comprising: Georgios Pantzeiris, Michael Seymiris, Stamatios Agelastos, Michael Panagiotidis, Michael Gionis and Antonios Ioannidis. On 13 August of the same year, Ecumenical Patriarch Grigorios VI in the presence of the bishop of Pamphylia, Dionysios, set the foundation stone of the church.
Vasilakis Ioannidis Efenthis was the appointed architect of the church. The financial difficulties that arose during the completion of the project were resolved with the issue of a lottery and loans from wealthy members of the Greek-Rum Community. On the commemoration day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Sunday 14 September) of 1880, the official inauguration of the Church was celebrated by the Ecumenical Patriarch Joachim III in the presence of many synodical Archpriests.
The Church is surrounded by a large garden, bordering the courtyard of the adjacent Zappeion Girls’ School. Ancillary buildings are found around the Church, which are preserved and used to date. In the paste, these buildings used to be the parish school of Agia Triada (shut in 1979 due to lack of pupils), the “financial soup kitchen” and the clinic of the parish, which featured a laboratory, radiology equipment and dental clinic. Its operation stopped in 1978 due to lack of medical staff and patients.
The church suffered extensive damage and plunders on 6-7 September 1955, exactly 50 years ago. After the years of hardship that followed in the ‘50s-’80s, the late industrialist and entrepreneur Panagiotis Aggelopoulos, Great Benefactor and Archon Megas Logothetis (Grand Deputy) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, donated the amount of ninety thousand US dollars to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, to allocate at his discretion.
This amount was used for renovation works inside and outside the Church, that took about two years. The official opening ceremony (thyranoixia) of the renovated church was celebrated by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, on Sunday 23 March 2003. The Church is now operating daily, while the Divine Liturgy is celebrated every Sunday by the priest of the church, before a flock of a few remaining members of the Greek-Rum Community of Istanbul and many Greek tourists-pilgrims.
