Aziz Polikarp Kilisesi (Sen Polikarp)Church of St. Polycarp (Sen Polikarp)

The Church of St. Polycarp is the oldest church still standing in Izmir. It takes its name from St. Polycarp, one of the disciples of the Apostle John, who was bishop of Smyrna for about fifty years. Because he refused to deny Christ, around the year 155 they tried to burn him alive in the stadium of Smyrna, and when the flames did not touch him he was killed with a dagger. He has been regarded as the patron saint of Izmir ever since.

The church’s story begins in 1625 with a chapel opened in the French Consulate building, with permission from the Ottoman authorities. In 1630 a church and friary were built in place of the chapel on the archdiocese’s present grounds, and St. Polycarp became the church of the French community. The building was destroyed in the great earthquake of 1688, and the present church was built in its place in 1690.

Damaged and repaired many times, the church was enlarged in 1898 and received its present splendid decoration. Raymond Péré, a young French painter and architect who settled in Izmir at the end of the 19th century, painted the frescoes, which also tell the story of St. Polycarp’s martyrdom. The church’s name is linked with Izmir’s emblem, the Clock Tower.

For centuries the church was served by the Capuchin Franciscan friars; the order left the friary in 1984. The present friary building was built in 1929 to replace the old one destroyed in the great Izmir fire of 1922.