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The Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarchate has decided to turn the historic Buyukada Greek Orthodox Orphanage into a hotel, saying the severely damaged wooden landmark can no longer be kept up without a sustainable income model.
The decision was taken by the Holy Synod, the Patriarchate’s senior church council, under Patriarch Bartholomew I. In a statement last week, the Patriarchate said previous efforts to restore the building, which closed in the 1960s and has since suffered heavy damage, had failed to bring about a lasting solution.
The Patriarchate said the new function would be shaped in line with Buyukada’s architectural and social character, with an emphasis on environmentally sensitive and ecological tourism.
Laki Vingas, a former representative of minority community foundations, told bianet that the building’s size, wooden structure, security risks and maintenance costs made it impossible to preserve without a source of revenue.
Vingas said the Patriarchate had taken the decision because a building of this scale could not stand on symbolic value alone. He stressed that protecting cultural heritage also required a long-term and realistic plan.
“Nobody tells you, ‘Take this fund, restore the building and just look at it.’ Neither the European Union nor any other ‘rich’ actor would make such a huge investment. There is no such example anywhere in the world. Therefore, we have to think rationally,” Vingas said.
According to Vingas, the community had looked for different ways to protect the building and had carried out function analyses with professional companies. After several options were assessed, the hotel model was chosen as the most workable one.
He said the decision was not made because of an outside proposal or pressure, but through independent evaluations carried out with experts.
Vingas added that he understood the criticism coming from some groups, yet argued that the building had no other realistic way to survive. He said everyone involved respected the past, but also had a responsibility toward today’s Istanbul residents, noting that leaving the building as a ruin carried its own burden.
The building was constructed in 1898 by French architect Alexandre Vallaury and was originally designed as a hotel named Prinkipo Palace. It belonged to a French company, but Abdulhamid II did not allow it to operate as a hotel.
The Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarchate later bought the building in 1903 and turned it into a home and school for Greek Orthodox orphans from Istanbul and different parts of Anatolia. Over time, it housed nearly 200 children and served for decades as both a shelter and an educational institution.
The orphanage was forced to close in 1964, during a period of worsening Türkiye-Greece relations linked especially to the Greek Cyprus crisis. Since then, it has been left unused and has badly deteriorated.
Today, the structure is described as Europe’s largest and the world’s second-largest wooden building. It was placed on a European cultural heritage watch list in 2010.
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Its ownership became disputed in the 2000s, and the Patriarchate launched a legal fight to regain it in 2005. In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the property should be returned to the Patriarchate.
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