ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS AND CONSERVATION PROPOSALS OF OTTOMAN PERIOD GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCHES: THE CASE OF BURSA

Bursa and Cumalıkızık Management Plan was adopted in 2014 and in the same year, the historical areas of Bursa determined in the plan were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The vast majority of the buildings in the Management Plan are works of the Ottoman Period. However, Bursa has an ancient historical past that it had before the Ottoman rule. Bursa; It is an important settlement that has hosted many civilizations since the Ancient Age. Before 1326 (H.726), when Bursa came under Ottoman rule, some of the places of worship built by the Greeks living in the region have survived to the present day. However, the period until the Tanzimat Edict was a period when Christian subjects could not build new places of worship and were subject to certain restrictions to repair existing ones. Although the Ottomans left non-Muslims free to believe and worship, they imposed significant restrictions on the construction and repair activities related to places of worship. With the Westernization movements that emerged in the last periods of the Empire and the reform studies in many areas implemented in this direction, these restrictions were largely eliminated in the middle of the 19th century and non-Muslims were allowed to build new places of worship. The subject of the study is mainly the Greek-Orthodox churches built after these permissions. Four of the fifteen churches discussed within the scope of the study were built before the Tanzimat Edict, in the 19th century. It was built in the first half of the century. In the study, the current status of the churches was documented with photographs and drawings, restitution studies and drawings were included in order to determine their condition on the date they were first built, conservation problems were mentioned, and conservation suggestions were put forward for their protection and survival for the coming years.