St. Térèse Church () is a

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

, the capital of Turkey. It is dedicated to

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux In Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Anglican, Oriental Orth ...

. It is one of two Catholic churches that provide services there, the other being located at the Nunciature of the Holy See.

History

The French College of St. Clement built in the 1880's under the direction of the

Brothers of the Christian Schools The De La Salle Brothers, officially named the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (; ; ) abbreviated FSC, is a Catholic lay religious congregation of pontifical right for men founded in France by Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (16 ...

was located here until 1915, when the neighborhood was close to the old Armenian quarter. The college and the surrounding neighborhood was largely destroyed in the Ankara fire of 1917. The same street was named Brothers Street (''Kardeşler Sokak'') in recognition of the work of the French religious brothers who taught there. A new building was erected in 1928 to serve for a year as the

Chancery Chancery may refer to: Offices and administration * Court of Chancery, the chief court of equity in England and Wales until 1873 ** Equity (law), also called chancery, the body of jurisprudence originating in the Court of Chancery ** Courts of e ...

of the French embassy and, until 1962, as the French school for french diplomat children. In the same time it housed a small chapel on the second floor which remains until today. The building underwent a general restoration in 2002. Its decoration includes a mosaic by the French artist Hervé Vital, based on those found in the churches of Cappadocia. The kings David and Solomon appear on the right. They point at Adam and Eve emerging from the tomb on the left and reaching for the hand of the risen Christ in the center. Other mosaics depict the Blessed Virgin holding the infant Jesus and Christ holding the Gospel in one hand and blessing with the other. Six stained glass windows were constructed in 1914 in Bordeaux for the chapel of the French College in Izmit (Kocaeli), a school run by the Assomptionist fathers and preserved when that institution closed in 1920, then installed in St. Thérèse in 1952, joined by four more in the same style made in Florence.

References

External links

Video tour of the Church, in Turkish
via YouTube {{Portal bar, Turkey, Christianity Religious buildings and structures in Ankara Landmarks in Turkey 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Turkey

History

See also

References

External links