"Every day, a piece of the building falls out," laments Baytas, the building's 56-year-old caretaker. I get emotional because it is my home, and before me it was the home of thousands of children." The wife of a Greek banker later purchased it and donated it to the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which then ran it as an orphanage. Istanbul's Greek population has dwindled to less than 3,000 in recent years, but the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the seat of the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, remains in the city. "I do not know how they will repurpose the building but it does not matter, as long as it is saved," he said.

Source: ABC News September 09, 2018 11:21 UTC