Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols/Παναγία η ΜουχλιώτισσαIn 1281, Maria Palaiologina, illegitimate daughter of Emperor Michael VIII and widow of Abaqa, Khan of the Mongolian Il-Khanate, returned to Constantinople after an absence of 15 years. She is said to have rebuilt the nunnery and the church (which then assumed the shape still seen today), deserving the title of Ktētorissa ("foundress") of that complex, and retired there until her death. Since that time, the nunnery and the church got the appellation of
Mouchliōtissa (
"of the Mongols" in Greek). After her death the convent decayed, because her heirs used the properties of the nunnery for their purposes, and had even raised a mortgage on them. Finally the nuns started a suit with the heirs first before the Emperor, and then before the Patriarch. The heirs presented as proof of their right an imperial chrysobull certifying the purchase of the nunnery from Maria Palaiologina, but the document was deemed false, so that the Patriarchate restored the rights of the nuns. The nunnery existed until the end of the Empire, then was abandoned.
On May 29, 1453, the day of the Fall of Constantinople, the surroundings of the building saw the last desperate resistance of the Greeks against the invading Ottomans. Due to that, the church got the Turkish name Kanlı Kilise ("Church of the Blood"), and the road that leads to it from the Golden Horn is still named the Ascent of the Standard Bearer (Turkish: Sancaktar yokuşu), in honour of an Ottoman standard bearer who found his death fighting here.
Tradition holds that Sultan Mehmed II endowed the church to the mother of Christodoulos, the Greek architect of the mosque of Fatih, in acknowledgment of his work. The grant was confirmed by Bayazid II, in recognition of the services of the nephew of Christodoulos, who built the mosque bearing that sultan's name.
Under Sultans Selim I and Ahmed II there were two Ottoman attempts to convert the church into a mosque (the last one, pursued by Grand Vizier Ali Koprülü at the end of the seventeenth century, was thwarted by Dimitrie Cantemir) and, thanks to the grants of Mehmed II and Bayazid II, the church remained a parish of the Greek community. Thus, Saint Mary of the Mongols is one among the few Byzantine churches of Istanbul whose ancient dedication was never forgotten.
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