Pammakaristos Church

surrounded by the prophets of the Old Testament Most scholars believe that the church was built between the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Many historians and archaeologists attribute the original structure to Michael VII Ducas (1071–1078); others put its foundation in the Comnenian period. Alternatively, the Swiss scholar and Byzantinist Ernest Mamboury suggested that the original building belonged to the 8th century. The parekklesion (side chapel) was added to the south side of the church in the early Palaiologan period, and dedicated to Christos ho Logos (). Shortly after 1310, Martha Glabas erected a small shrine in memory of her late husband, the protostrator Michael Doukas Glabas Tarchaneiote, a general of Andronikos II Palaiologos. An elegant dedicatory inscription to Christ, written by the poet Manuel Philes, runs along the inside and outside of the parekklesion. The main church was also renovated at the same time, as the study of the Templon has shown. The synod of 1484, in which the council of Ferrara-Florence was condemned, took place in this church. Five years later, the Ottoman Sultan Murad III converted the church into a mosque and renamed it in honor of his conquest (fetih) of Georgia and Azerbaijan, hence the name Fethiye Camii. To accommodate the requirements of prayer, most of the interior walls were removed to create a larger inner space. After years of neglect, the complex was restored in 1949 by the Byzantine Institute of America and Dumbarton Oaks. In 2021 restoration work on the building began again. The mosque was opened for prayer in 2022, and the restoration was completed in 2024 with an official opening for visitors. == Architecture and decoration ==

The Comnenian building was a church with a main aisle and two deambulatoria, three apses, and a narthex to the west. The masonry was typical of the Comnenian period, and used the recessed brick technique. In this technique, alternate courses of brick are mounted behind the line of the wall, and are plunged in a mortar's bed, which can still be seen in the cistern underneath and in the church. The transformation of the church into a mosque greatly changed the original building. The arcades connecting the main aisle with the deambulatoria were removed and replaced with broad arches to open up the nave. The three apses were removed too. In their place towards the east a great domed room was built at an oblique angle to the orientation of the building. On the other side, the parekklesion represents what is sometimes considered the most beautiful building of the late Byzantine period in Constantinople. It has the typical cross-in-square plan with five domes, but the proportion between vertical and horizontal dimensions is much more attenuated than usual (although not so big as in the contemporary Byzantine churches built in the Balkans). Although the inner colored marble revetment largely disappeared, the shrine still contains the restored remains of a number of mosaic panels, which, while not as varied and well-preserved as those of the Chora Church, serve as another resource for understanding late Byzantine art. A representation of the Pantocrator, surrounded by the prophets of the Old Testament (Moses, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Micah, Joel, Zechariah, Obadiah, Habakkuk, Jonah, Malachi, Ezekiel, and Isaiah) fills the main dome. In the apse, Christ Hyperagathos is shown with the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist. A Baptism of Christ survives intact to the right side of the dome. File:Pammakaristos Church Exterior South side in 2010 21 9625.jpg|Fethiye Museum exterior File:Pammakaristos Church Exterior Southeast side in 2017 24 2459.jpg|Fethiye Museum exterior File:Pammakaristos Church Exterior Southeast side in 2017 26 2462.jpg|Fethiye Museum Exterior File:Fethiye Museum 9620.jpg|Fethiye Museum domes File:Pammakaristos Church Main dome mosaic Sophonias - Mica - Jo'el - Zacharias in 2010 11 9610.jpg|Fethiye Museum mosaic in a dome File:Pammakaristos Church Mosaic of St. Anthony the Great in 2010 27 9568.jpg|Fethiye Museum mosaic with Saint Antony, the desert Father File:Pammakaristos Church Mosaic of St. Anthony the Great in 2010 30 9593.jpg|Fethiye Museum mosaic of Saint Antony, the desert Father File:Pammakaristos Church Main Dome mosaic Christ Pantocrator in 2010 01 9607.jpg|Fethiye Museum mosaic Christ File:Fethiye Museum 9567.jpg|Fethiye Museum mosaic Saint Gregory of Great Armenia File:Fethiye Museum 9587.jpg|Fethiye Museum mosaic File:Fethiye Museum 9598.jpg|Fethiye Museum capital In the building with the Fethiye Museum (with an entrance in the street passing the garden where the entrance to the museum is) a part is still a mosque. Here are some pictures of its interior File:Fethiye Mosque in 2017 2468.jpg|Fethiye Mosque interior File:Fethiye Mosque 2469.jpg|Fethiye Mosque interior File:Fethiye Mosque 2474.jpg|Fethiye Mosque interior File:Fethiye Mosque in 2017 2466.jpg|Fethiye Mosque interior File:Fethiye Mosque 2476.jpg|Fethiye Mosque interior File:Fethiye Mosque 2473.jpg|Fethiye Mosque interior ==See also==