My friend and I are going to be on the Turkey tour starting April 17th, and we decided to get there a few days early (arriving Thursday 13th.) It dawned on me today that we will be there during Orthodox Easter. If anyone else has been, what things might be closed? And I'm hoping that there will be services we can attend, it's actually a wonderful opportunity being there at this time!
Thank you! Terri
Turkey is an overwhelmingly majority Muslim country, and Orthodox Christians make up about 0.1% of the population. I doubt that any businesses will close for Orthodox Easter. There are some lovely Orthodox churches in Fener, but there are very few congregants. My impression when I visited Fener is that the churches would not exist at all with a heavy subsidy from the Greek Orthodox Church. Aya Yorgi or St. Stephen's would probably your best bets. (Edit: There is also an Orthodox Church around Taksim, but I haven't visited it.)
Edit again: I did some reading after posting last night. It looks like Orthodox Easter is a thing for Greek tourists in Istanbul. Services might be more crowded than I originally thought.
