Chora Church (Kariye Mosque)

In the history of art, there are monuments that do not merely illustrate an era but are its quintessence, its final and most brilliant statement. For the late Byzantine period, such a statement was the Chora Monastery — the Church of Christ the Savior in the Countryside, known today as the Kariye Mosque. This small church, located near the land walls of Constantinople, is rightfully considered the "second most important after Hagia Sophia" for the Christian world and, possibly, the first in the world in terms of the artistic perfection of its surviving mosaics.