The Church of Panagia Chalkeon

The Church of Panagia Chalkeon is an 11th-century Byzantine church in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. With the conquest of the city in 1430 by the Ottoman Turks, the church was turned into a mosque, named Kazancilar Camii ("Mosque of the Cauldron-Merchants"). It served as a mosque until the end of the Ottoman occupation in 1912. The building underwent a restoration in 1934 following the Chalkidiki earthquakes of 1932. According to the founder's inscription above the west entrance, the church was built in 1028 by the protospatharios Christopher, katepano of Longobardia, and his wife, son, and two daughters. The inscription reads: This once profane place is dedicated as an eminent church to the Mother of God by Christopher, the most illustrious royal protospatharios and governor of Lagouvardia, and his wife Maria, and their children Nicephorus, Anna, and Catacale, in the month of September, indiction XII, in the year 6537.[2] (The Byzantine Calendar year 6537 Anno Mundi is equivalent to the year 1028 Anno Domini.) Christopher's tomb was probably located in an arcosolium on the church's northern wall.