A monastery “in the country”
Chora means “country” or “land” in Greek. The monastery was founded outside the walls of Constantine’s city, and when the Theodosian walls were built further west it found itself inside the city, near the land walls of Constantinople. The church we see dates largely from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a cross-in-square building under a dome, with two narthexes in front and a long side chapel, the parekklesion.
The patron: Theodore Metochites
Between about 1315 and 1321 the church was restored and decorated by Theodore Metochites, the most powerful official at the court of Emperor Andronikos II, a scholar and writer as well as a minister. Over the door into the main church, a mosaic shows him kneeling before Christ and offering a model of the church, wearing a large striped hat, the headdress of his office. When the emperor fell in 1328, Metochites lost his power; he spent his last years as a monk at the Chora and died there in 1332.
The mosaics
The two narthexes are covered with mosaic cycles. One tells the life of the Virgin, using the stories of her childhood from an early text outside the Bible, the Protevangelium of James: her parents Joachim and Anna, her birth, her first steps, her presentation in the Temple. The other tells the life of Christ, from his birth to his miracles. Small domes show the ancestors of Christ. The figures are slender and lively, set in landscapes and architecture, in the refined style of the last centuries of Byzantine art.
The frescoes of the side chapel
The parekklesion was a funerary chapel, and its frescoes speak of death and resurrection. In the apse, the Anastasis shows Christ, in white, breaking the gates of hell and pulling Adam and Eve out of their tombs. On the vault above, the Last Judgement unfolds. Painted at the same time as the mosaics, these frescoes are among the finest works of late Byzantine art.
Mosque, museum, mosque
After the Ottoman conquest of 1453 the church remained in use for some decades, and in the early sixteenth century it was converted into a mosque. The mosaics were covered or left in shadow. Between 1948 and 1958 the Byzantine Institute of America uncovered and restored them, and the building opened as the Kariye Museum. In 2020, the same year as Hagia Sophia, a presidential decree issued after a court ruling returned it to use as a mosque. After a restoration it reopened as a mosque in May 2024. According to the Turkish Directorate General of Foundations, as reported in 2024, the mosque is open to foreign visitors six days a week from 9:00 to 18:00 for a fee of 20 euros, closed to tourists on Fridays, and tourist visits stop 15 minutes before each prayer. The narthexes and the side chapel remain open to visitors; travel guides report that some figures in the prayer hall are curtained during prayers.
Where to see it
The church stands in the Edirnekapı district of Istanbul, close to the Theodosian land walls, about 5 kilometres west of Hagia Sophia. Tourist visits are closed on Fridays, and visitors should dress modestly; check the current hours and fee before going.
Sources
- P. A. Underwood, The Kariye Djami (New York, 1966-1975).
- R. G. Ousterhout, The Art of the Kariye Camii (London, 2002).
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline, “The Kariye Camii (Chora Church)”.
- istanbul.com and international press (May 2024) on the reopening as a mosque; Turkish press reports of the announcement by the Directorate General of Foundations (2024).
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