Balıklı Ayazma
Ayazmas are fountains which are believed by the Christian world to have healing powers.
The real name of the Balıklı Ayazma, being the most famed ayazma in Istanbul and being called as "Holy Water" by the Othodox Christian world, is "Zoohodos P i y i" which in fact means "life sparing fountain". Christians dedicate it to Virgin Mary.
Ayazma is located just outside the gate that was named as "Porta Selymbria" by the Byzantines which is named today as Silivrikapı. It used to be called as Porta Piyi at the end of the 15th century.
There used to stand in the mid 5th century the Panayia Church, next to the balıklı Ayazma, both were made by Leo.I. (457-474). This peaceful and quiet place out of the town gained fame by the erection of the ayazma.
According to the sayings Leo, who was a jobless person before he became the emperor, met a blind person while he was wandering around one day. The old man asked for some water from him and to take him to a shadowy place. While he was looking around with the hope to find such a suitable spot Leo heard a voice from nowhere telling him where a fountain is, and where the blind man could begin to see again if they washed his eyes with its water and that he himself would become the emperor. Upon the old mans beginning to see again after having washed his face with this fountain's water Leo believed that he shall also be the emperor, went and enrolled with the army. Not long after he has promoted to the rank of general and dethroned Emperor Markianos with a revolution and was crowned by the Patriarch of Constantinople to become the emperor in 457. He soon had this ayazma erected where that fountain was as a sign of his thankfulness.
As the famed historian Prokopios says Emperor Justinianos I., who reigned between 527-565, had this ayazma rebuilt in 560 because it healed a malicious illness of his, and also had a chapel built next to it with the surplus material left over from the construction of Hagias Sophia.
Both the ayazma and the chapel have been ruined several times in the history because they were outside the city walls, and also were damaged from the earthquakes. But each time they have been re-constructed to keep them serviceable. Last repair works carried out at the ayazma was in 1960 after the 1955 earthquake.
There exist one another Ayia Paraskevi Ayazma too in Zeytinburnu on the Demirhane Street across the Kazlıçeşme Fallen Soldiers Cemetery.
