page_title: Fenari Isa Mosque
section_title: North church
hierarchical_section_title: Fenari Isa Mosque / Architecture and decoration / North church
caption_attribution_description: English: Fenari Isa Mosque Northern Dome
context_page_description: Fenâri Îsâ Mosque, in Byzantine times known as the Lips Monastery, is a mosque in Istanbul, made of two former Eastern Orthodox churches.
context_section_description: The north church has an unusual quincuncial (cross-in-square) plan, and was one of the first shrines in Constantinople to adopt this plan, whose prototype is possibly the Nea Ekklesia ("New Church"), erected in Constantinople in the year 880, of which no remains are extant. During the Ottoman period the four columns have been replaced with two pointed arches which span the whole church.
  The dimensions of the north church are small: the naos is 13 metres (43 feet) long and 9.5 metres (31.2 feet) wide, and was sized according to the population living in the monastery at that time. The masonry of the northern church was erected by alternating courses of bricks and small rough stone blocks. In this technique, which is typical of the Byzantine architecture of the 10th century, the bricks sink in a thick bed of mortar. The building is topped by an Ottoman dome pierced by eight windows.
  This edifice has three high apses: the central one is polygonal, and is flanked by the other two, which served as pastophoria: prothesis and diakonikon.
  The apses are interrupted by triple (by the central one)and single lancet windows. The walls of the central arms of the naos cross have two orders of windows: the lower order has triple lancet windows, the higher semicircular windows. Two long parekklesia, each one ended by a low apse, flanks the presbytery of the naos. The angular and central bays are very slender. At the four edges of the building are four small roof chapels, each surmounted by a cupola.
  The remainders of the original decoration of this church are the bases of three of the four columns of the central bay, and many original decorating elements, which survive on the pillars of the windows and on the frame of the dome. The decoration consisted originally in marble panels and coloured tiles: the vaults were decorated with mosaic. Only spurs of it are now visible.
  As a whole, the north church presents strong analogies with the Bodrum Mosque (the church of Myrelaion).
caption: North Church Dome.
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