CHAPTER VII
THE CHURCH OF THE THEOTOKOS PAMMAKARISTOS, FETIYEH JAMISSI
The Byzantine church, now Fetiyeh Jamissi, overlooking the Golden Horn from the heights of the Fifth Hill, was the church of the Theotokos Pammakaristos (the All Blessed), attached to the monastery known by that name.
Regarding the identity of the church there can be no manner of doubt, as the building remained in the hands of the Greek community for 138 years after the conquest, and was during that period the patriarchal cathedral.
The questions when and by whom the church was founded cannot be so readily determined. According to a manuscript in the library of the Greek theological college on the island of Halki (one of the small group of islands known as the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmora), an inscription in the bema of the church ascribed the foundation of the building to John Comnenus and his wife Anna. [215] The manuscript perished in the earthquake which reduced the college to a heap of ruins in 1894, but the inscription had fortunately been copied in the catalogue of the library before that disaster occurred. It read as follows:
Ἰωάννου φρόντισμα Κομνηνοῦ τόδε Ἄννης τε ῥίζης Δουκικῆς τῆς συζύγου. οἷς ἀντιδοῦσα πλουσίαν, ἁγνή, χάριν τάξαις ἐν οἴκῳ τοῦ θεοῦ μονοτρόπους. [216]
S. Mary Pammakaristos, from the south-east.