The inhabitants of Constantinople were sinners, though not sinners above all men, as they are often represented. But in their hospitals, orphanages, asylums for the aged, free caravanseries, asylums for lepers, and other institutions "to give rest to those whom trouble had distressed," which humanised the city with compassion, they were distinguished also for that charity which covereth a multitude of sins.

The Churches of S. Mary Pammacaristos (Fethiyeh Djamissi), the Church of S. Theodosia (Gul Djamissi), and portions of S. Saviour-in-the- Chora, carry us to the times of the Palseologi, the dynasty that occupied the throne of Constantinople during the last one hundred and ninety years of the city's history as New Rome. It is the period of the long struggle with the Ottoman Turks, and the culmination of the conflict between the Mohammedan world and Christendom which had filled more than eight centuries with its hate and din; when the sign in which the Empire had conquered yielded to the sign of the crescent, and the benediction of the prophet of Islam—" Whoso taketh the city of Constantine, his sins are forgiven "—found at length a man upon whose head it could settle. It is a sad period of Byzantine history; yet one noble idea, at least, appealed to its mind—the Reunion of Christendom — which, if realised, would have changed the history of Europe. But it was not to be.

City situated near the fortifications

Like all the churches of the city situated near the fortifications, the Church of S. Saviour-in-the- Chora was regarded with special veneration as a guardian of the safety of "the God-defended capital/' and there, during the siege of 1458, was placed, as an additional pledge of security, the icon of S. Mary Hodegetria, attributed to S. Luke. But the church was the first sanctuary into which Turkish troops broke on the fatal 29th May for pillage. They spumed to take the icon as a part of their plunder, and in mockery of its vaunted power hacked it to pieces. The Latin Church of S. Peter in Galata claims to possess one of the fragments.

With S. Theodosia is connected the pathetic association that the festival day of the church coincided with the day on which the city fell in 1458. The area and galleries of the building were packed by a large and earnest congregation that kept vigil through the night-watches, praying for the safety of the Queen of Cities, when suddenly, soon after the sun had risen, the wild rush of soldiers and shouts of victory in strange accents told that the enemy had triumphed, and that the day of vengeance was at the door. No massacre ensued, but the whole congregation was doomed to slavery.

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