The Marmot’s Hole

Interesting fun fact, taken from a book I’m reading now entitled “In the Empire of Genghis Khan,” written by Stanley Stewart - the only Byzantine church in Constantinople not converted into a mosque following the Ottoman conquest of that city in 1453 is the Panagia Mouchliotissa, otherwise known as St. Mary of the Mongols.

In case you were curious, St. Mary was a Byzantine princess, the illegitimate daughter of Emperor Michael VIII. At a young age, she was promised in marriage to Hulegu, a grandson of Genghis Khan who, as khan of Persia, sacked Baghdad in 1258. Anyway, she apparently took her time getting to Persia, because when she finally turned up in Tabriz, Hulegu had passed on to the great grassland in the sky. Before dying, however, Hulegu was sure to include in his will that Maria be inherited by his son Abaqa. The two were wed, and she spent 15 years as Queen of the Persian Il-Khanate until one of Abaqa’s brothers assassinated her hubby in 1281. The assassin, however, very much viewed Maria is part of his rightful inheritance, so she fled back to Constantinople where her father, apparently wishing to spare his capital the fate that befell Baghdad (and Kiev, Samarkand, Herat…), tried to marry her off AGAIN to another Mongol khan. This was too much for Maria, who instead became a nun and founded The Church of Panagia Mouchliotissa in or around 1285.

Why was Our Lady of the Mongols allowed to remain a Christian Church after the Ottoman conquest, you might ask? Well, according to the church’s site at the link above:

After the conquest, Mehmet II made a present of the church to the Greek architect Christodoulos as a reward for the construction of the Mosque of the Conqueror (Fatih Camii) on the site of the demolished church of the Holy Apostles. Thus, the Panagia Mouchliotissa has remained to this day an Orthodox Church.

But is it possible that the Turks may have simply respected a church founded by the wife of a fellow horse warrior from the steppes? Hmmm…