The Kariye Museum, formerly the "Church of the Monastery in the Chora", was outside the city prior to the building of the Theodosian walls, hence its Greek name Chora Ekklesia, "Church in the Country". Restored after an earthquake in 557, the basilica was rebuilt in its current Greek-cross plan in the 11th century. Additions and renovations (1316-1321) were sponsored by Theodore Metochites, a scholar and prime minister under Andronicus II. One of the last churches built before the Fall of Constantinople (1453). Its importance does not lie as much with its architecture but in the mosaics and frescoes which grace its interior and that of the attached parekklesion. After it was declared a museum, the Byzantine Institute of Washington D.C. and the Dumbarton Oaks Center of Byzantine Studies restord it in 1948. My free-hand photographs (before digital cameras) of the mosaics of the vault of the main church (1990)
.
and the frescoes of the Parekklision (1990)
Mapa del lugar de interés Chora-Kariye Ekkllesia 11th cent