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The Bulgarian , also known as the Bulgarian Iron Church''', is a Bulgarian Orthodox church in Istanbul, famous for being made of cast iron. The richly ornamented church is a three-domed cross-shaped Basilica . The Altar faces the Golden Horn and a 40 m-high belfry, the six bells of which were cast in Yaroslavl , rises above the Narthex . HISTORY The church belongs to the Bulgarian minority. The Bulgarians of the Ottoman Empire used to pray at the churches of the Phanar Orthodox Patriarchy , but due to nationalistic movements, Bulgarians were allowed a national church in the 19th Century . Wooden church First, a small wooden church was erected on the shore of the Golden Horn between Balat and Fener squares (near Eyüp district), where the current church is located. A house was donated by the statesman Stefan Bogoridi that was reorganized as a wooden church. It was inaugurated on 9 October 1849 and became an important site of the Bulgarian National Revival . The Ottoman Royal Decree of 28 February 1870 establishing the Bulgarian Exarchate was first read in the church. Iron church After the original wooden structure suffered from a fire, the larger current building was constructed at its place. An iron frame was preferred to s, were produced in Vienna in 1893 - 1896 and transported to Istanbul by ship through the Danube and the Black Sea . After one and a half years' work, the chuch was completed in 1898 and inaugurated by Exarch Joseph on 8 September that year. The main skeleton of the church was made of Steel and covered by metal boards. All the pieces were attached together with nuts, bolts, rivets or Welding . The Architectural styles come from the Neo-Gothic and Neo-Baroque periods. St Stephen was the product of 19th Century experimentation with prefabricated Iron Church es. The British, who invented corrugated iron in 1829 , manufactured portable iron churches to send to far-flung colonies like Australia . The Eiffel Tower 's creator, French engineer Gustave Eiffel , designed iron churches that were sent as far as the Philippines and Peru . Now St Stephen is one of the world's few surviving prefabricated cast iron churches. EXTERNAL LINKS
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