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In 907 Constantine Lips, a contemporary of Leo VI, restored the old monastery founded in the western part of Constantinople by erecting a five-domed cross-in-square church dedicated to the Theotokos. The building was lavishly decorated with inlaid icons and mosaics (now lost) and very important still surviving sculptures. The widow of Michael VIII Palaiologos, Dowager Theodora, restored the monastic complex adding a new church to the south dedicated to Hagios Ioannis (St John) the Baptist. The interior of this second building, which was much more elaborately decorated, housed 16 arcosolia and functioned as a mausoleum for the imperial family of the Palaiologoi. The Typikon composed by Theodora at around 1300 indicates that it functioned as a nunnery. Apart from the addition of the southwest minaret the complex was converted into a mosque with no substantial changes. |
