The Church of Theotokos Panaghiotissa (Church of St. Mary of the Mongols)

The Church of Theotokos Panaghiotissa (Church of St. Mary of the Mongols) Review

This rose-red-color church is signficant for being the only standing Byzantine-era church still in Greek hands, other churches having been appropriated and turned into mosques. It's beside the giant redbrick building of the Fener Greek School for Boys, and while it's often locked, it's still worth climbing up the hill to look at it from the outside. The church was the center of a nunnery reestablished by the Byzantine princess Maria Palaeologina, who spent 16 years in Iran as the wife of the Mongol Khan Abaqa in an attempt to form an anti-Muslim alliance.