Pammakaristos Church

The Pammakaristos Church, today known as the Fethiye Camii, stands in the Carsamba neighbourhood of Istanbul's Fatih district and is one of the most important surviving Byzantine churches of Constantinople. The main church was built in the 11th or 12th century; after the sack of 1204 it served briefly as the seat of the Patriarchate between 1456 and 1587. Its side chapel, the parekklesion, holds 14th-century gold-ground mosaics that rank only behind those of Hagia Sophia and the Chora in importance for Istanbul. In 1591 Sultan Murad III converted the building into a mosque to mark his conquest of Georgia and Azerbaijan, hence the name Fethiye, meaning conquest. The main hall now functions as a regular mosque, while the parekklesion operates as a museum with a separate ticket.