.[283] It was converted into a mosque in the reign of Sultan Selim
II. (1566-74) by a wealthy courtier, Hassan Pasha, and was known as
Hassan Pasha Mesjedi.[284] Its title, the mosque of the Rose, doubtless
refers to its beauty, just as another mosque is, for a similar reason,
styled Laleli Jamissi, the mosque of the Tulip.

Before leaving the church we may consider the claims of the tradition
that the chamber in the south-eastern dome pier contains the tomb of the
last Byzantine emperor. The tradition was first announced to the general
public by the Patriarch Constantius in a letter which he addressed in
1852 to Mr. Scarlatus Byzantius, his fellow-student in all pertaining to
the antiquities and history of Constantinople.[285] According to the
patriarch, the tradition was accepted by the Turkish ecclesiastical
authorities of the city, and was current among the old men of the Greek
community resident in the quarter of Phanar; he himself knew the
tradition even in his boyhood. Furthermore, distinguished European
visitors who inquired for Byzantine imperial tombs were directed by
Turkish officials to the church of S. Theodosia, as the resting-place of
the emperor who died with the Empire; and the inscription over the door
of the chamber referred to that champion of the Greek cause. Strangely
enough, the patriarch said nothing about this tradition when treating of
the church of S. Theodosia in his book on _Ancient and Modern
Constantinople_, published in 1844. In that work, indeed, he assigns the
tomb in question to some martyr who suffered during the iconoclastic
period.[286] This strange silence he explains in his letter written in
1852 as due to prudence; he had reason then to 'put the seal of
Alexander upon his lips.'

[Illustration: FIG. 55. (For other details in the church see Fig. 76.)]

The tradition has recently received the honour of being supported by Mr.
Siderides, to whom students of Byzantine archaeology are so deeply
indebted. But while accepting it in general, Mr. Siderides thinks it is
open to correction on two points of detail.

In his opinion the church of S. Theodosia was not the first sanctuary to
guard the mortal remains of Constantine Palaeologus, but the second. Nor
was the body of the fallen hero, when ultimately brought to this church,
placed, as the patriarch supposed, in the chamber in the south-eastern
pier, but in the chamber in the pier to the north-east. The reasons
urged in favour of t