Aziz Yuhanna Katedral BazilikasıCathedral Basilica of St. John

The Cathedral Basilica of St. John is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Izmir and one of the most impressive Catholic places of worship in Anatolia. The church of Smyrna (Izmir), one of the seven churches of the Book of Revelation, is praised in the second letter Jesus sent through John with the words “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:8-11). Tradition holds the Apostle John to be the founder of this community, and the cathedral is dedicated to him.

The history of the church of Smyrna continues with John’s disciple, Bishop Polycarp. Around the year 107 Polycarp welcomed Ignatius of Antioch here as he was being taken to Rome in chains, and around 155 he was martyred in the ancient stadium, not far from the cathedral. Because no bishop could reside in Izmir in Ottoman times, the title long remained honorary; between the 17th and 19th centuries there was an Apostolic Vicariate. In 1818 Pope Pius VII re-established the Archdiocese of Izmir; until a new cathedral was built, the Santa Maria Church in Pasaport served as the cathedral for 56 years.

In 1857 Archbishop Antonio Mussabini bought land for the cathedral. Mussabini, papal representative in Constantinople, not only obtained permission thanks to his friendship with Sultan Abdülaziz; the sultan also donated 11,000 gold liras for the building. The work, interrupted by Mussabini’s death, resumed when his successor Vincenzo Spaccapietra blessed the foundation stone on 25 November 1862. After twelve years of building, carried forward by the generous contributions of Izmir’s Catholics, the cathedral was consecrated on 14 June 1874.

The simple, elegant neoclassical building stands where the ancient harbor of Smyrna lay; remains of the Hellenistic-Roman harbor lie beneath the buildings in front of the cathedral. Pope Pius IX gave the cathedral its high altar, and the Archdiocese of Lyon, whose bishop was St. Irenaeus of Smyrna, sent the fourteen paintings of the Stations of the Cross as a sign of gratitude. Of the stained-glass windows commissioned from the painter Paul Gaudin in Paris in 1901, only one survived the fire of 1922; it is now to the right of the altar of St. Joseph. In the vault beneath the Blessed Sacrament chapel lie Mussabini, Spaccapietra, Andrea Timoni, who helped bring about the discovery of the House of the Virgin Mary at Ephesus, and Domenico Marengo.

In the great fire of 1922 the cathedral was badly damaged; the archbishop’s palace, the administrative buildings and the catechism halls burned down completely. Before the fire Izmir had about 15,000 Catholics and many schools, hospitals and religious orders; that vitality declined quickly afterwards. To preserve the cathedral, Archbishop Joseph Descuffi leased it in 1965 to the US military community as a chapel. When security measures made it hard for the public to enter the church, the archdiocese ended the agreement in 2013; the restored cathedral reopened to the local community on 29 September 2013.

In 2014 the Diocese of Isernia in Italy gave a 4-meter bronze statue of St. John by the sculptor Battista Marello; it now stands in the church garden. On 27 December 2016 Archbishop Lorenzo Piretto consecrated the new marble altar, which contains relics of St. John and the other apostles and a fragment from the tomb of St. Peter. Popes John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II have visited the cathedral.