Aziz Antuan Kilisesi (Saint Antoine)Church of St. Anthony (Saint Antoine)

In 1898 Sultan Abdülhamid II gave the hill of Bayraklı to Yahya Hayati Pasha and Transibullo Pittako. The two wanted to found a new village on this green hill overlooking the sea; many Catholic families from Izmir built summer houses here. Eager to see the village grow, the founders gave free land to Catholics, Armenians, Orthodox and Muslims to build places of worship.

In 1899 the Capuchin friar Giambattista da San Lorenzo came to visit a family he knew in Bayraklı; the families told him they wished to give the Capuchins the land the pasha had donated to them, for a church and friary. In 1901 the bishop gave his permission. On 29 June 1902 the first Catholic Mass was celebrated in the house of the Mattesich family, with 30 people present.

Despite the municipality’s hesitation and the wait for the sultan’s firman, the first stone of the church was laid on 14 July 1902 and that of the friary on 7 August 1902; at the time, 300 Catholic families lived in Bayraklı. The first resident priest, Bernardo da Castelmine, settled in 1903; the same year the sultan’s firman arrived and a Christian cemetery was established. In 1904 a six-class Italian school opened beside the friary. On 19 April 1905, 4,000 people attended the feast of St. Expeditus, celebrated when the church still had only its walls.

The first official ceremony in the church took place on 13 August 1922. The building once had two bell towers; one collapsed after a major earthquake. The friary and church took their present form in 1990 and continue to serve the area’s small Christian community.