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Hagia Irene is an Eastern Orthodox church in the outer courtyard of Topkapı Palace, Istanbul. It is the city's oldest church and, along with the Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols, one of the few Byzantine churches never converted into a mosque. Used as an arsenal until the 19th century, it now serves as a museum and concert hall.
Believed to stand on a pre-Christian temple, Hagia Irene predates Hagia Sophia, originally built under Constantine I in the 4th century. It served as the Patriarchate's church until Hagia Sophia's completion in 360. Destroyed in the Nika Revolt (532), it was rebuilt by Justinian I in 548 and later restored by Constantine V after an earthquake in 740.
The church follows a basilica plan with a cross-domed gallery level. It features Byzantine mosaics, including an Iconoclastic-era cross, and houses the city's only surviving synthronon (clergy seating).
After Constantinople fell in 1453, Hagia Irene became an arsenal for the Janissaries and later a military museum (1726–1978). Since 1980, it has hosted classical music concerts, particularly during the Istanbul International Music Festival. Open to the public since 2014, it remains a significant historical and cultural site.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.