It was built during the Venetian rule of the island in 1239, primarily used by the local lords and officials of the island. After the Ottoman conquest of Crete in 1669, it was converted into a mosque with the name Defterdar Ahmet Pasha Mosque, and remained so until 1915.
The building was restored after 1956 and ever since functions as a public art gallery. It is one of the few Roman Catholic churches still standing in Cretan cities and towns. Architecturally-wise it is a three-aisled basilica church with an elevated central nave. It has a portico in its entrance in the western façade.
History
Venetian period
The basilica of Saint Mark was built in 1239, after the Venetian conquest of Crete following the Fourth Crusade, with the first stone put in place by the Latin bishop of Ierapetra. It was built in Gothic style, in accordance to the Western churches and highlighting the difference of the Latin dogma.
It was built in the center of the city of Candia (modern Heraklion), the capital of Crete, across the palace of the Duke of Candia, and was used by the duke and high-ranking officials of the local commune for their needs. The church belonged not to the Latin bishop but to the duke himself, who appointed a prefect or a “chaplain” in charge of the church. The ducal degrees were announced in the entrance of the basilica, which was also the place were the official assumptions of the lords and officials’ duties took place. The members of the duke’s family were buried in the church’s yard.
The first church was severely damaged in the 1303 Crete earthquake, but it was later restored. A stronger still earthquake which hit the island in 1508 damaged Saint Mark anew. In a report dating to 1552 it is mentioned that the northern wall was about to collapse, and thus it was supported with four struts, two of which survive to this day.
In a document from 1514 the local duke asked for wooden beams to be transferred from the town of Sfakia for the repair works of the basilica. Those works were completed in 1557, but Saint Mark was once more partially ruined following earthquakes in 1564 and 1595. Renovation works on the church took place in 1599 with the builder Micheles Raptopoulos and the carpenter Giannis Kladas in charge, though after an autopsy in 1625 the northern wall was deemed again to be about to collapse.
During the Cretan War (1645–1669), the bell tower of the basilica was used as an observatory, with its bells ringing every time the bombardment started. Saint Mark’s bell tower was different from the others in the city due to its top that was flat and battlemented and also had a clock.[8] After the surrender of Candia to the Ottomans, the Venetians took the bells and other relics away.
Ottoman period
After the fall of Candia in 1669, the building was surrendered to Ahmet Pasha, who was the Ottoman defterdar (the minister of finance) from 1661/2 until 1675.
Ahmet Pasha converted the Catholic church into a mosque and bought some buildings of the city, including the duke’s palace, in order to fund the mosque. The Ottomans demolished the bell tower of Saint Mark and in its place they erected a minaret, while also destroying the murals and frescoes in the interior of the church and throwing away the bone relics to build a mihrab and the minbar. The mosque was named after its founder, Defterdar Ahmet Pasha. It would remain as a mosque for over two centuries until 1915, when it was closed by the Greek state.
The Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi visited Crete in 1669 and wrote that the basilica was situated in the market of Candia, with its façade facing the fountain square (the Fountain of Morosini), and that it was founded by the sultan Mansur in the times of Caliph Umar, an invented story that provided impeccable Islamic pedigree for one of the city’s main public buildings. He also wrote that a yard could be found north of the building, and that faucets had been build on the northern wall. The mosque had in total three yards to the north, the south and the east, a well and a cistern. Its minaret was built on the south corner of the basilica, and its remains can still be seen to this day. The mosque complex (Külliye) also consisted of three shops, a cellar and a two-storey building.
For the maintenance and operation of the new mosque there was a waqf (endowment) which consisted of nine houses, two monastic complexes, twenty-two shops and two farms.
Of these, six houses and one monastic complex was situated in the Christos Kefalas district of the city, one house and one farm in the Agros Kefalas district, one house and seventeen shops in the Saint Kyriake district, one house, one monastic complex and one farm in the Archistrategos district, and finally five shops in the John Chrysostom district.
According to the account of the kadi of Candia in 1688 it is mentioned that the waqf of the mosque also maintained a türbe outside the city walls.
Modern period
After the Greco-Turkish population exchange in 1924 and the departure of the island’s Muslim community, the former mosque came to the hands of the National Bank of Greece, and then to the municipality of Heraklion, and was used at first as a cinema. The minaret was finally torn down in 1924.
In 1949 the Section Tourism Committee of Heraklion (STCH) suggested to fund the renovation of the church along with that of other monuments of the city. In the early 1950s the municipal council suggested that the church be demolished and a municipal theatre or a post office be built in its place, a plan which was abandoned as the necessary funds could not be collected.
In 1954 the archaeological council decided on the preservation of the church and in 1956 restoration works of the basilica began by the Society of Cretan History Studies. This was the oldest restoration for a monument of Western architecture that took place in Crete. This basilica is one of the few Roman Catholic churches that still stand on the island of Crete.
