Together with the churches of St. Mary Draperis (also on Istiklal Avenue), and of SS. Peter and Paul in Galata, it was one of three Levantine parishes in Beyoglu.

Today it is run by Italian priests.

Saturday Mass in Italian begins at 19:00; Sunday Mass in Polish is at 9:30, in English at 10:00 and at 17:00 in Turkish; and Tuesday Mass in Turkish begins at 11:00. Weekday Masses are in English at 8:00.

The original Church of St. Anthony of Padua was built in 1725 by the Italian community of Istanbul, but was later demolished and replaced with the current building which was constructed on the same site. The current basilican church, along with the adjacent residential buildings (known as the St. Antoine Apartmanları) was built between 1906 and 1912 in Venetian Neo-Gothic style, again by the city’s Italian community. The building was designed by the Levantine architect Giulio Mongeri, who also designed other important buildings in Turkey, such as the Maçka Palas in Nişantaşı and the Neo-Byzantine Karaköy Palas bank building in Karaköy (Galata), Istanbul, as well as the first headquarters of the Türkiye İş Bankası in Ankara.

Pope John XXIII preached here for 10 years while he was the Vatican‘s ambassador to Turkey before being chosen as pope. He is known as “the Turkish Pope” because of his fluency in Turkish and his oft-expressed love for Turkey and for Istanbul in particular.