Comneni Recreate Chora as Quincunx
After the renovation of Chora Church by Justinian in 536, the sacred lieu de mémoire had a relatively quiet proceeding 500 years as it became a burial place for several emperors and religious leaders (1).
During the rule of the Comneni family from 1081-1185, the Great Palace of Constantinople along the Bosporus was abandoned and the emperors moved their home to the Palace of Blachernai along the Theodosian walls. The Comneni family are renowned for their work as builders of Constantinople, commissioning many buildings and churches (2). They extended this love of building to the Chora Church. Located close to Blachernai, religious ceremonies began to be held by the ruling family in Chora and the church took on an entirely new importance and significance within Constantinople (1).
The Chora Church, still standing from its initial ramshackle chapel in the early fourth century, was majorly renovated and expanded upon by Maria Doukaina, the mother-in-law of Emperor Alexios Komnenos I (1). Maria reorganized and restructured Chora into the shape of a quincunx, five circles arranged in a cross, as the quincunx was considered to be a holy shape. In its third major iteration, the Chora Church was set up as a relic to the holy cross by becoming a holy cross.
This lieu de mémoire, built upon holy ground a half of a millennium before, was now literally molded into a holy shape. Reminding all visitors of its origins and its history as a resting place for saints and bishops, Chora Church took on the holy air that was befitting for a church that was the preferred place of worship and celebration of the emperors. Even during the Ottoman rule of Istanbul and the conversion of Chora into a mosque, Chora remained the shape of a quincunx, remembering and refusing to forget its first life as a Byzantine Christian church.