Istanbul Fatih district, which was named after Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (Turkish: "Fatih Sultan Mehmed"), corresponds to what was, until the Ottoman conquest in 1453, the whole of the city of Constantinople (today is the capital district and called the "historic peninsula" of Istanbul) on the southern shore of the Golden Horn, across the medieval Genoese citadel of Galata on the northern shore. The Genoese fortifications in Galata were largely demolished in the 19th century, leaving only the Galata Tower, to make way for the northward expansion of the city. Galata (Karaköy) is today a quarter within the Beyoğlu (Pera) district,
Saint Gregory the Illuminator Church of Galata church. Historian Kevork Pamukciyan believes that the current church was built on the location of St. Sargis, an Armenian church in Galata, mentioned in two Armenian manuscripts from 1360 and 1361. The church and an Armenian quarter around it are recorded in an Ottoman survey from 1455 which indicated the "continuation of the Byzantine Armenian presence into the Ottoman period." In 1635 Patriarch Grigor Kesaratsi (Gregory of Caesarea) was buried at the wall of the church by Shahin Çelebi, a wealthy Armenian. The church was often damaged by fires. It survived the Galata fire of 1660. It burned almost entirely