TURKISHCOURSE

It was Easter that day, and we joined Easter service...

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church of St. Stephen of the Bulgars was the cathderal church of the Bulgarian Exarch, a title and position invented by the Ottoman sultan when, in the later 1800s, the sultan's Bulgarian subjects demanded to be emancipated from the authority of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch. At this time of ethnic nationalism, the Bulgarians claimed, with justification, that the patriarch favored Greeks over Bulgars even though both were orthodox Christians.
The church is still used for services by Istanbul's small, dwindling community of Bulgarian orthodox residents.