Chora Monastery (Turk. Kariye Camii), located in the northwestern region of Constantinople near Edirne Kapi. The early history of Chora (Ξώρα, lit. “dwelling place”) is obscure. A legendary tradition attributes the foundation to the 6th-C. saint Theodore (BHG 1743), supposed uncle of Justinian I’s wife Theodora; a more reliable source identifies the founder as Krispos, son-in-law of the 7th-C. emperor Phokas. In the 9th C. Chora was a center of resistance to Iconoclasm; the iconodule saints Theophanes Graptos and Michael Synkellos were associated with the monastery and buried there. Restored in the 11th C. by Maria Doukaina, mother-in-law of Alexios I, Chora was again renovated in the 12th C. by her grandson, Isaac Komnenos the sebastokrator. Like its predecessor, Isaac’s church was a domed basilica built of recessed-brick masonry on a cross-in-square plan with, however, a larger, single apse. Traces of its mosaic decoration remain in the south window of the nave.

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