Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Istanbul

Church of Our Lady of Lourdes
Notre Dame de Lourdes Gürcü Katolik Kilisesi
An image of the church in the 19th century
Location	Istanbul
Country	Turkey
Denomination	Catholic Church (Georgian Byzantine rite)
History
Dedication	Our Lady of Lourdes
Architecture
Architectural type	church

The Church of Our Lady of Lourdes (Turkish: Notre Dame de Lourdes Gürcü Katolik Kilisesi; Georgian: სტამბოლის ქართველთა სავანე) is a historic parish of the Georgian Greek Catholic Church in the district of Bomonti of the Istanbul district of Şişli in Turkey. As of 2013, the church is still in use and remains one of the few Georgian Greek Catholic parishes in the world.

It was built in 1861 with the cooperation of the Catholic priest Peter Kharischirashvili, who wished to provide a rite in the Georgian language. In the 1950s, up to 10,000 ethnic Georgians of the Catholic faith lived in Istanbul. After the Istanbul pogrom in 1955 under Adnan Menderes, many Georgians and other Christians emigrated from Turkey. Today the Georgian-Catholic community numbers only 200 to 250 people. As the number of Georgian Catholic Christians in Istanbul has declined, a large part of the church community today consists of ethnic Armenians and ethnic Turkish converts to the Catholic Faith.

File:Chiesa Madonna di Lourdes dei Padri Georgiani (2).jpg

The church in 1898

See also

• Georgian Byzantine-Rite Catholics
• Catholic Church in Georgia
• Catholic Church in Turkey