ly assume that if the
work was not commenced while Leo III. sat upon the throne, it was
undertaken soon after the accession of Constantine Copronymus. S. Irene
was too important to be long neglected, and was probably rebuilt during
the ascendancy of the iconoclasts.

The church reappears for a moment in 857 during the dispute which raged
around the persons of Ignatius and Photius as to which of them was the
lawful patriarch. While the partisans of the latter met in the church of
the Holy Apostles to depose Ignatius, the few bishops who upheld the
claims of Ignatius assembled in S. Irene to condemn and depose Photius
with equal vehemence.[138]

The church comes into view once more in connection with the settlement
of the quarrel caused in 907 by the fourth marriage of Leo VI. the Wise.
As the union was uncanonical, the Patriarch Nicholas deposed the priest
who had celebrated the marriage; he, moreover, refused the Communion to
the emperor, and treated Zoe, the emperor's fourth wife, as an outcast.
For such conduct Nicholas lost his office, and a more pliant
ecclesiastic was appointed in his place. The inevitable result followed.
The religious world was torn by a schism which disturbed Church and
State for fifteen years. At length Romanus I. summoned a council of
divines to compose the agitation, and peace was restored in 921, by a
decree which condemned a fourth marriage, but allowed a third marriage
under very strict limitations. So important was this decision regarded
that it was read annually, in July, from the pulpit, and on that
occasion the emperor, with the patriarch, attended service in S. Irene,
and at its close took part in a procession from S. Irene to S. Sophia,
on the way back to the Great Palace.[139]

[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.
S. IRENE. THE INTERIOR, LOOKING EAST.
(With the kind permission of Professor C. Gurlitt, from his work _Die
Baukunst Konstantinopels_, Berlin, E. Wasmuth.)
_To face page 90._]

On Good Friday the patriarch held a service for catechumens ([Greek:
katechesis]) in S. Irene, which the patricians were required to
attend.[140]

The church of S. Irene has never been used as a mosque. After its
enclosure within the precincts of the Seraglio soon after the Turkish
conquest, it was converted into an armoury, probably because it stood in
the court occupied by the body of Janissaries who formed the palace
guard, and it has served that military purpose, in contradiction to its