Chora Church (Kariye Mosque)

Within The UNESCO World Heritage Inscription Historic Areas Of Istanbul (1985); A Byzantine Church Decorated 1315 1321, A Museum From 1945, Reconverted To A Mosque In 2020 And Reopened After Restoration In 2024 · Istanbul, Istanbul

Out at the land walls, well away from the tourist streets, is a small Byzantine church whose interior is the finest surviving late-Byzantine art anywhere. Between 1315 and 1321 a statesman and scholar called Theodore Metochites paid to redecorate it, and what his mosaicists and painters produced - the genealogy of Christ running across the domes, the life of the Virgin in panel after panel, and in the side chapel a fresco of the Resurrection in which Christ hauls Adam and Eve bodily out of their tombs - is work of a quality that changed what people thought late Byzantium was capable of. It became a mosque around 1511, a museum in 1945, and a mosque again in 2020; it then closed for restoration and reopened in 2024. Which is why the practical advice is simply this: what you can see here has changed more than once and nearly every published description is out of date. Check on the day, not in a guidebook.

Dervis Ali Mahallesi, Kariye Camii Sokak, Edirnekapi, Fatih, Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkiye

Reconverted to a mosque in 2020, closed for restoration and reopened in 2024. ARRANGEMENTS HAVE CHANGED REPEATEDLY: whether there is a ticket, which parts are open to visitors and whether the naos mosaics are curtained during prayer have all varied. Visiting pauses around the five daily prayers and for longer at Friday midday. Confirm on the day rather than trusting any published account.

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