trance into the
church.--The Apostle Peter with the keys in his hand.

_The Third Bay_

44. In the lunette over the main entrance to the church.--Theodore
Metochites on his knees offering the church to Christ seated on a
throne. The legend [Greek: ho ktetor logothetes tou gennikou Theodoros
ho Metochites].[544]

[Illustration: PLATE XCI.
_Sebah and Joaillier._
(1) S. SAVIOUR IN THE CHORA. MOSAIC REPRESENTING THE REGISTRATION OF
JOSEPH AND MARY AT BETHLEHEM.
_Sebah and Joaillier._
(2) S. SAVIOUR IN THE CHORA. MOSAIC REPRESENTING THEODORE METOCHITES
OFFERING THE CHURCH TO CHRIST.
_To face page 326._]

45. In the western lunette.--Mary receiving purple and
scarlet wool to weave in the veil of the temple.

46. In the vault.--On the east, Mary admitted to the Holy of
Holies when three years of age, lest she should go back to
the world; on the west, the procession of maidens escorting
Mary to the temple.

47. The third transverse arch.--To the east, Mary in the
temple receiving bread from the archangel Gabriel; to the
west, Mary in the temple receiving instruction.

48. On the eastern wall, to the south side of the main
entrance to the church.--The Apostle Paul.

[Illustration: FIG. 115.--MODEL OF THE CHURCH OF S. SAVIOUR IN THE
CHORA.]

The scenes represented on these mosaics are not peculiar to this church,
but are a selection from cycles of subjects which from the eleventh
century became favourite themes for pictorial treatment on the walls of
important churches in the Byzantine world. Several of these scenes are
found portrayed also at Daphni, Mistra, S. Sophia at Kiev, in the
churches of Mt. Athos, on diptychs and manuscripts,[545] as well as in
the chapel of the arena at Padua. The cycle of subjects taken from the
life of Mary was developed mainly in Syria, and Schmitt[546] goes so far
as to maintain that the mosaics of the Chora are copies of Syrian
mosaics executed by a Syrian artist, when the church was restored in the
ninth century by Michael Syncellus, who, it will be remembered, came
from Syria.

Kondakoff assigns most of the mosaics to the Comnenian restoration of
the church by Maria Ducaena in the eleventh or twelfth century. One of
them at least, the Deesis, has survived; and there may be others of that
period, for, as that mosaic proves, the narthex of the church was
decorated when the church was restored by that benefactress of the
Chora. But the testimony of Nicephorus