[Illustration: PLATE LVIII. S. SAVIOUR PANTEPOPTES. EXTERIOR DECORATION IN BRICK, ON SOUTH SIDE.]
[Illustration: S. MARY PAMMAKARISTOS. BRACKET AT THE SOUTH-EAST ANGLE OF THE EXTERIOR WALL OF THE PARECCLESION.]
S. Saviour Pantepoptes is the most carefully built of the later churches of Constantinople. The little irregularities of setting out so common in the other churches of the city are here almost entirely absent. This accuracy of building, the carving of the string-courses, and the remains of marble decoration both within and on the exterior, prove exceptional care.
[350] _Ibid._ For the career of this distinguished woman, see Diehl, _Figures byzantines_.
[351] Nicet. Chon. pp. 315-16; Pachym. i. pp. 314-15, ii. p. 185.
[352] Villehardouin, _La Conquête de C.P._ pp. 141-44; _Chroniques gréco-romaines_, pp. 96, 97.
[355] _Die byzantinischen Wasserbehälter von K.P._, von Dr. P. Forcheimer und Dr. J. Strzygowski, pp. 106-7.
[356] _Librum insularum Archipelagi_, 65.
THE CHURCH OF S. SAVIOUR PANTOKRATOR, ZEÏREK KILISSI JAMISSI
According to the tradition current in the city when Gyllius[358] and Gerlach[359] explored the antiquities of Constantinople, the large Byzantine church, now the mosque Zeïrek Kilissi Jamissi, overlooking the Golden Horn from the heights above Oun Kapan, was the famous church of S. Saviour Pantokrator. There is no reason for doubting the accuracy of this identification. The church was so important, and so closely associated with events which occurred late in the history of the city, that its identity could not be forgotten by the Greek ecclesiastical authorities soon after the Turkish conquest. Moreover, all indications of the position of the church, although too vague to determine its precise site, are in harmony with the tradition on the subject. For, according to Russian pilgrims to the shrines of Constantinople, the Pantokrator could be reached most readily from the side of the city on the Golden Horn,[360] and stood in the vicinity of the church of the Holy Apostles[361]--particulars that agree with the situation of Zeïrek Kilissi Jamissi.
The church was founded by the Empress Irene,[362] the consort of John II. Comnenus (1118-1143), and daughter of Ladislas, King of Hungary. She came to Constantinople shortly before 1105 as the Princess Pyrisca, a beautiful girl, 'a plant covered with blossoms, promising rich fruit,' to marry John Comnenus, then heir-apparent to the crown of Alexius Comnenus, and adorned eight years of her husband's reign by the simplicity of her tastes and her great liberality to the poor. The monastic institutions of the city also enjoyed her favour, and not long before her death in 1126 she assumed the veil under the name of Xené. The foundations of the church were, probably, laid soon after her husband's accession to the throne, and to the church she attached a monastery capable of accommodating seven hundred monks;[363] a xenodocheion, a home for aged men, and a hospital.[364]