Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Istanbul

The Georgian Catholic Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in the Istanbul neighborhood of Bomonti is one of very few active centres for Georgian Catholics in union with Rome. A small Georgian Catholic community formed in nineteenth-century Istanbul, made up of refugees from the Ottoman-Russian borderlands; the current church serves them and a growing number of Georgian migrant workers as a spiritual home. The liturgy is celebrated in the Byzantine rite in Georgian - unusual in a majority-Muslim city. Behind a modest side-street entrance in Sisli, visitors find a quiet prayer space with Marian icons and candles in front of a Lourdes grotto. Largely off the tourist circuit, this is a stop for travellers interested in religious history and Eastern Christianity rather than for hurried sightseers.