Guide
East of the Koimesis church in İznik, in a garden separated from the street by a wall, an iron railing and a gate, stands a baptistery reached from the west down eleven steps. The entrance is 2.55 metres high, closed above by an architrave, with a pediment above that framed by a brick arch. Through it you enter an underground room 4.5 metres across and 3.8 metres high, its dome laid in brick, its floor paved with stone slabs, its walls built in alternating courses of rubble stone, brick and lime mortar.
The most interesting things here are two inscriptions on the marble edge stones of the cistern, which measure 0.88 metres long, 0.29 wide and 0.10 thick. On the outer face of the eastern stone is a Greek inscription reading Tower of Michael, the Christian emperor and great king; on its inner face is a Hebrew inscription taken from scripture, meaning that he gives what is good to all flesh, for his mercy endures for ever. The building belongs to the sixth century, in the Byzantine period. It was built first as a baptistery and was later used as an ayazma, a sacred spring. It is on Çelebi Sokak in the Yeni quarter.
