niches on the north, south, and west, and a somewhat
deeper niche on the east where the apse stands. These niches are carried
up through a vaulting string-course, carved with a repeating leaf
ornament, and combine with the groined vault above them to produce a
charming canopy. The southern transept gable, though much built up,
still displays the design which occurs so frequently in Byzantine
churches, namely, three windows in the lunette of the arch (the central
light rising higher than the sidelights), and three stilted arches below
the vaulting string-course, resting on two columns and containing three
windows which are carried down to a breastwork of carved marble slabs
between the columns. The floor of the church is paved with square red
bricks, except in the apses, where marble is employed. The gynecaeum,
above the inner narthex, is divided into three bays separated by broad
transverse arches. The central bay, which is larger than its companions,
is covered with a dome vault, and looks into the body of the church
through a fine triple arcade in the lunette of the western arm of the
cross. The smaller bays are covered with cross-groined vaults. As
elsewhere, the vaulting-string in the gynecaeum is decorated with carved
work. The inner narthex, like the gynecaeum above it, is divided into
three bays covered with cross-groined vaults, and communicates with the
church, as usual, by three doors. Its walls seem to have been formerly
revetted with marble. In the northern wall is a door, now closed, which
gave access to a building beyond that side of the church. The exonarthex
is also divided in three bays, separated by transverse arches, and
communicates with the inner narthex by three doors and with the outer
world by a single door situated in the central bay. That bay has a low
dome without windows, while the lateral bays have groined vaults.
Turkish repairs show in the pilasters and the pointed arches which
support the original transverse arches. The doors throughout the
building are framed in marble jambs and lintels, adorned in most cases
with a running ornament and crosses. In the case of the doors of the
exonarthex a red marble, _breche rouge_, is employed, as in the
exonarthex of the Pantokrator, another erection of the Comnenian period.
On the exterior the building is much damaged, but nevertheless preserves
traces of considerable elaboration. The walls are of brick, intermixed
with courses of stone, and on the th