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Kariye Mosque (originally Chora Church) is a former Christian church, now converted to a mosque (for the second time) in Istanbul. It is mainly famous for its outstanding Late Byzantine mosaics and frescos.
The Chora Church was originally built in the early 4th century as part of a monastery complex outside the city walls of Constantinople. However, when Theodosius II built his formidable land walls in 413–414, the church became incorporated within the city's defences, but retained the name Chora.
The majority of the current building dates from 1077–1081. Early in the 12th century, the church suffered a partial collapse, perhaps due to an earthquake. The church was rebuilt again in the 14th century. However, it was only after the third phase of building, two centuries after, that the church as it stands today was completed. The powerful Byzantine statesman Theodore Metochites endowed the church with many of its fine mosaics and frescoes. The mosaic-work is the finest example of the Palaeologian Renaissance.
Around fifty years after the fall of the city to the Ottomans, Hadım Ali Pasha, the Grand Vizier of Sultan Bayezid II, ordered the Chora Church to be converted into a mosque. Due to the prohibition against iconic images in Islam, the mosaics and frescoes were covered behind a layer of plaster. This and frequent earthquakes in the region have taken their toll on the artwork.
In 1945, the building was designated a museum by the Turkish government. In 1958, it was opened to the public as a museum, Kariye Müzesi. In 2019, the Turkish Council of State, Turkey's highest administrative court, ordered that it was to be reconverted to a mosque. In August 2020, its status changed to a mosque.
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.