EOTOKOS PAMMAKARISTOS,
FETIYEH JAMISSI

The Byzantine church, now Fetiyeh Jamissi, overlooking the Golden Horn
from the heights of the Fifth Hill, was the church of the Theotokos
Pammakaristos (the All Blessed), attached to the monastery known by that
name.

Regarding the identity of the church there can be no manner of doubt, as
the building remained in the hands of the Greek community for 138 years
after the conquest, and was during that period the patriarchal
cathedral.

The questions when and by whom the church was founded cannot be so
readily determined. According to a manuscript in the library of the
Greek theological college on the island of Halki (one of the small group
of islands known as the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmora), an
inscription in the bema of the church ascribed the foundation of the
building to John Comnenus and his wife Anna.[215] The manuscript
perished in the earthquake which reduced the college to a heap of ruins
in 1894, but the inscription had fortunately been copied in the
catalogue of the library before that disaster occurred. It read as
follows:

[Greek: Ioannou phrontisma Komnenou tode
Annes te rhizes Doukikes tes syzygou.
hois antidousa plousian, hagne, charin
taxais en oiko tou theou monotropous].[216]

[Illustration: PLATE XXXVI.
(1) S. MARY PAMMAKARISTOS, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.
(2) S. MARY PAMMAKARISTOS, FROM THE WEST.
_To face page 138._]

The legend cannot refer to the Emperor John Comnenus (1118-1143), for
his consort was neither named Anna nor related to the family of Ducas.
She was a Hungarian princess, who, on becoming the emperor's bride,
assumed the name Irene. Mr. Siderides, therefore, suggests that the
persons mentioned in the inscription were that emperor's grandparents,
the curopalates and grand domestic John Comnenus and his wife, the
celebrated Anna Dalassena, who bore likewise the title of Ducaena. In
that case, as the curopalates and grand domestic died in 1067, the
foundation of the church cannot be much later than the middle of the
eleventh century. But whether the term [Greek: phrontisma] should be
understood to mean that the church was founded by the illustrious
persons above mentioned, or was an object already in existence upon
which they bestowed their thought and care, is not quite certain. Mr.
Siderides is prepared to adopt the latter meaning, and the architecture
of the church allows us to assign the foundation of the buildin