Chora Museum

The Chora Museum, originally a Byzantine church, is famed for its 14th-century mosaics and frescoes, offering insights into late Byzantine art and architecture.

Planning your visit

The Chora holds the finest late Byzantine mosaics and frescoes anywhere. Built as a monastery church, its decoration dates from around 1315 to 1321, funded by Theodore Metochites, a scholar and statesman who is depicted presenting the church to Christ — and the work represents the Palaiologan renaissance, the last flowering of Byzantine art before the empire fell.

The mosaics cover the lives of Christ and the Virgin in narrative sequence across domes and vaults, with a naturalism, movement and psychological depth that anticipates Italian developments. The Anastasis fresco in the side chapel, showing Christ hauling Adam and Eve bodily from their tombs, is among the great images of Christian art.

The building's status has changed: converted to a mosque after 1453, made a museum in 1945, and reconverted to a mosque in 2020, reopening for worship in 2024 with visiting arrangements altered accordingly — checking current access is worthwhile.

Bookable options include skip-the-line entry with audio guide. Current availability is shown below.