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This review examines non-Muslim cemeteries in Istanbul as multicultural urban heritage landscapes, using the Feriköy Protestant Cemetery as its principal case. Rather than treating cemeteries solely as religious or funerary spaces, it conceptualizes them as material archives of urban memory, minority presence, spatial displacement, and heritage governance. Drawing on a literature review, historical documentation, spatial mapping, and field observation, the article first traces the transformation of non-Muslim cemeteries from the Ottoman period to the Republican period, with particular attention to their relocation, disappearance, and reuse within processes of urban modernization. It then analyses the Feriköy Protestant Cemetery in terms of its establishment, multinational governance structure, architectural and funerary features, transferred memorial elements, digitisation practices, and conservation initiatives. The case illustrates the layered relationships among urban development, multicultural identity, and sustainable conservation. The article argues that Istanbul’s surviving non-Muslim cemeteries should be understood as living spaces of memory and cultural landscapes whose protection requires documentation, public awareness, and multi-actor heritage governance.
- Ottoman period
- non-Muslim cemeteries
- Feriköy Protestant Cemetery
- cultural heritage
Cemeteries are not only places of burial, mourning, and religious practice; they are also material archives of urban history, social identity, cultural plurality, and collective memory. In multicultural cities, cemetery landscapes record the presence of different communities through their spatial locations, inscriptions, funerary monuments, ritual practices, ownership structures, and patterns of continuity or displacement. Within this framework, non-Muslim cemeteries in Istanbul constitute a significant but often overlooked component of the city’s multicultural urban heritage. They reveal how religious communities were spatially organized, how minority identities were represented in the urban landscape, and how processes of modernization, relocation, and conservation transformed the material traces of communal memory.
The Ottoman imperial system accommodated religious and communal diversity through legally and administratively differentiated structures, most notably the millet system. Under Islamic law, when a city with a non-Muslim population was conquered, a covenant known as a zimmet akdi was concluded with its inhabitants, and non-Muslims who accepted it were referred to as zimmis. Within this framework, the rights of non-Muslim communities were legally recognised in several respects [1]. According to Eryılmaz, until the beginning of the twentieth century, the term millet in Ottoman usage referred primarily to a community sharing the same religion or sect [2,3][2][3] (p. 6). The Ottoman state therefore classified Muslims as one millet and non-Muslims as separate millets according to religious and sectarian affiliation.
In Ottoman documents, non-Muslims were referred to by terms such as Tebaa-i gayrimüslime (non-Muslim subjects), cemaat-ı muhtelife (different communities), and milel-i muhtelife (different nations). These communities were generally classified according to religious and sectarian belonging, including Christians, Jews, and other groups [3,4][3][4]. Karataş [1] (p. 269) defines the main non-Muslim millets within the Ottoman system as Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, while also noting that Catholics and Protestants became increasingly visible within this framework from the eighteenth century onwards. This institutional differentiation is important for understanding the formation, use, and management of non-Muslim cemeteries, since burial grounds were closely linked to communal identity, religious authority, and administrative recognition.
In the Ottoman Empire, non-Muslim communities conducted many of their affairs with the state through their own communal and religious representatives. The Orthodox Christians were represented by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Jews by the Rabbinate, and the Armenians by the Armenian Patriarchate [3]. While Muslims were subject to Sharia law in the administration of the state, non-Muslims maintained a degree of autonomy in social and religious matters such as marriage, inheritance, and death within the framework of their own communal regulations. This autonomy also shaped funerary practices and cemetery organization, making burial grounds key spatial indicators of communal presence and institutional continuity.
Istanbul has historically been a mosaic of different languages, religions, and cultures, and this plurality has been reflected in its religious, educational, medical, residential, and funerary landscapes. Gürçay [5] provides a detailed historical account of the diverse belief communities that existed in Istanbul during the Ottoman period, including the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the Armenian Patriarchate, and the Bulgarian Exarchate. These institutions were not only religious authorities but also actors that contributed to the spatial organization of communal life. Churches, schools, hospitals, residences, and cemeteries together formed a network of non-Muslim urban presence, particularly visible in districts such as Galata, Pera, Tatavla, Pangaltı, Şişli, and Feriköy.
From the second half of the nineteenth century onwards, Istanbul’s non-Muslim and foreign communities became increasingly visible through new urban institutions and architectural forms. Galata and Pera, long associated with port trade, diplomacy, and European commercial networks, became central areas of social and spatial transformation. The long-standing commercial relationships established by Greeks, Armenians, Latins, and Levantines with European companies contributed to the development of the city’s commercial and cultural ties with Europe [6]. Following the Tanzimat and Islahat reforms, schools that had initially operated within churches or modest premises increasingly became independent institutions, while Greek, Latin, and Armenian hospitals emerged as prominent healthcare establishments. In parallel, the residences of affluent non-Muslim and Latin families reflected the changing urban culture of the nineteenth century [6].
The transformation of Galata and Pera was also connected to legal, economic, and spatial changes in the nineteenth century. Following the 1867 law that clarified property rights for foreigners, the architectural character of the area began to change through the construction of monumental buildings, bell-towered churches, banks and insurance offices, commercial buildings, schools, hospitals, and residences [6]. Within this broader process, cemeteries were not marginal spaces but integral components of the same multicultural urban landscape. They recorded demographic presence, communal boundaries, religious affiliation, social status, and transnational connections while also becoming sites affected by urban modernization and spatial reorganization.
One of the early indicators of the spatial shift from Pera and Galata towards Şişli was the construction of the Saint Esprit Church in 1846. Following the Great Galata Fire and the construction of Saint Esprit, settlement expanded around the church, contributing to the formation of the present-day neighbourhoods of Tatavla and Feriköy. After the construction of the Taksim Barracks, a tree-lined road extending from Taksim to Pangaltı was opened in 1869, further strengthening the northward expansion of the city [6,7][6][7]. In this context, cemetery areas became crucial indicators of both population density and urban development. Even when the non-Muslim population living around these areas decreased, the surviving cemeteries and related buildings continued to preserve the material traces of Istanbul’s multicultural past.
For this reason, non-Muslim cemeteries in Istanbul should be understood not merely as burial grounds, but as multicultural urban heritage landscapes that reveal the spatial politics of modernization, minority memory, and conservation governance. Their relocation, disappearance, survival, or continued use reflects broader transformations in urban planning, communal identity, property relations, and heritage conservation. This article examines the historical development and spatial transformation of non-Muslim cemeteries in Istanbul during the Ottoman and Republican periods, with a particular focus on the Feriköy Protestant Cemetery. By analysing its establishment, architectural character, multinational governance structure, memorial elements, and role in cultural memory, the study treats Feriköy Protestant Cemetery as an analytically selected, information-rich case exemplar for understanding cemetery heritage as a living component of Istanbul’s multicultural urban memory.
References
- Karataş, A.İ. Osmanlı Devleti’nde Gayrimüslimlere Tanınan Din ve Vicdan Hürriyeti. Uludağ Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Derg. 2006, 15, 267–284.
- Eryılmaz, B. Osmanlı Devleti’nde Millet Sistemi; Ağaç Yayıncılık: İstanbul, Turkey, 1992.
- Adaklı, I. Osmanlı’da Kültürel Çoğulculuk Biçimleri ve Millet Sistemi; Research Paper; Sakarya University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Social Structure and Social Change Analysis: Sakarya, Turkey, 2013.
- Gök, A.A. Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Gayrimüslimler: Millet Sistemi, Tarihi Gelişimi ve Milletlerarası Antlaşmalar. Türkiye Siyaset 2001, 3, 101–108.
- Gürçay, S. İstanbul’un İnanç ve İnanışlarına Panoramik Bir Yaklaşım. Aydın Toplum İnsan Derg. 2017, 3, 35–56.
- Alp, S. İstanbul’daki Rum, Ermeni ve Levanten Mezarlıklarında 19. Yüzyıl Figürlü Mezar Anıtları. Ph.D. Thesis, Anadolu University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Art History, Eskişehir, Turkey, 2015.
- Brillari, D.; Godoli, E. İstanbul 1900: Art Nouveau Mimarisi ve İç Mekânlar; YEM Yayınları: İstanbul, Turkey, 1997.
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