THE KARIYE MUSEUM

Exterior of Kariye Museum. (Chora)

The original meaning of the word "chora" is rural area. This word, once given as a name to a small church outside the metropolis of Istanbul before the city walls of the Roman era were built in the 5th century, came to be the name of other churches built at the same spot afterwards.
The last of these churches that still stands today is believed to date back to the period between the 11th and the 14th centuries. Although the exterior is of no particular importance, the mosaics and frescoes of the interior are masterpieces that are regarded as the heralds of the renaissance of Byzantine art. All these and the parts annexed to the building during the 14th century were made upon the will of Theodore Methokides, a bias of his age.
Along the two corridors by the entrance, the lives of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ are depicted in mosaics in the chronological order of events cited in the Bible. lnside the chapel annexed to the side, other religious subjects including the pictures of the outstanding personalities of the court are worked in frescoes.
The mosaics and frescoes that were covered with plaster during the process of converting the church into a mosque at the beginning of the 16th century were later brought to light as a result of the efforts of the American Institute of Byzantine Studies.
Although its site was considered to be remote at the outset; the expansion of the city overtime and the erection of imperial palaces in the neighbourhood caused the Church and Monastery of Kariye to become one of the important places of worship in the city. As a result of this, the decoration of the interior of the present church was done lavishly and with great care by the masters of Byzantine art of the 14th century.

In this largest mural panel of the church, Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary are pictured side by side. The two figures of a man and a women lower down the panel are members of the imperial family.