In 450,
Empress Aelia Pulcheria began to construct a church near an
ayazma or
holy water spring situated outside the
walls of Theodosius II at the foot of the sixth hill of
Constantinople. After her death in 453, the shrine was completed by her husband, Emperor
Marcian. Emperor
Leo I erected two other buildings near the church: a
parekklesion, named
Ayía Sorós (holy reliquary) because it hosted the holy mantle and robe of the Virgin brought from
Palestine in 473, and the
´Ayion Loúsma (sacred bath) building, which enclosed the spring. Skarlatos Byzantios, in his influential work called "Constantinople", mentions the original Greek tradition that the district was named after the fish species called "Lakernai" in Latin, which the locals fished there in large quantities and called "Blachernai". According to a Romanian author, Ilie Gherghel, the name may derive from an old term used for the Romanians (Vlach, Blac, etc.) and from a small colony of
Vlachs. The church contained a famous
icon of the
Virgin, the
Vlachernítissa, named after the church. It was painted on wood and decorated with gold and silver. The Byzantines considered this icon and the
relics of the Virgin kept in the parekklesion to be extremely powerful at a time of war or natural disaster. The first proof of their power came in 626 when Constantinople was
besieged by the combined armies of the
Avars and the
Persians at a time when Emperor
Heraclius was away fighting the Persians in Mesopotamia. His son
Constantine, the Patriarch
Sergius and Patrician Bonus carried the icon along the ramparts and shortly afterwards the Avar army was destroyed. The
Khan of the Avars said afterwards that he had been frightened by the vision of a jewel-bedecked woman walking along the walls. . The District of Blachernae can be seen on the center left part of the map, surrounded on two sides by the walls of the city, below the Golden Horn. The Byzantine victory during the
Arab siege of 717-718 was also credited to the protection of the Virgin Vlachernitissa, as was the Byzantine victory against the
invasion of the Rus in 860. On the latter occasion, the
Veil of the Virgin (
mafórion), which had joined the other relics in the church, was plunged into the sea to invoke God's protection for the fleet. In 926 during the war against
Simeon of Bulgaria the potency of the relics of the Virgin also helped convince the Bulgarian Tsar to negotiate with the Byzantines rather than assault the city. In the early 10th century, a
procession took place every Friday in which these relics were brought to the church of Chalkoprateia, near the Hagia Sophia. On 15 August 944 the church received two more important relics: the letter written by King
Abgar V of Edessa to
Jesus and the
Mandylion. Both were subsequently moved to the
Church of the Virgin of the Pharos. As a centre for the veneration of images, the Church of St Mary also played an important role in Byzantine religious disputes. During the
Iconoclastic period, the final session of the
Council of Hieria, at which the cult of the images was condemned, took place in the church. On that occasion the Icon of the Blachernitissa was hidden under a layer of silvery mortar. and once again became one of Constantinople's most venerated icons. The Church of Saint Mary was completely destroyed during a fire in 1070, but was rebuilt by
Romanos IV Diogenes and
Michael VII Doukas to the same plan. On Friday after sunset, when the church was empty, the veil which covered the icon slowly rose, revealing the face of the Virgin, while twenty-four hours later it slowly fell again. The miracle did not occur regularly, and ceased completely after the
Latin conquest of the city. On 29 June 1434, some noble children hunting pigeons on the roof of the church accidentally started a fire, which destroyed the whole complex and the surrounding quarter. The area was largely neglected during the
Ottoman period. In 1867, the Guild of Orthodox
Furriers bought the parcel of land around the holy spring, and built a new small church there. == Description ==