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==History==
The church is near the northern tip of the walls of Theodosios Theodosius built by the Empress [[Pulcheria the Empress|Pulcheria]] (ca. 450-453), and her husband, Emperor [[Marcian]] (450-457). They had the church built on the site of a sacred spring, which was a place of [[pilgrim]]age near the shore of the Golden Horn (known as ''Ayvansaray'' today). Inside is now the best known and most celebrated [http://www.ec-patr.org/afieroma/churches/show.php?lang=en&id=02 sanctuary to the Virgin Mary in Constantinople]. Emperor Leo I (457-474) completed the church by adding the [[Life-giving Fount of the Theotokos|"Hagiasma"]] <ref> the '''''Hagiasma''''' in this case, is the fountain of holy water where water flowed out of the hands of the marble statue of the Virgin Mary </ref>. <ref>[http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/subject/hd/fak7/hist/o1/logs/byzans-l/log.started941201/mail-21.html ''Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium''] (ODB) 1:293; Janin, Eglises CP, 161-71 and the end map entitled "Byzance Constantinople," ref. D2; George P. Majeska, Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, (Washington, D.C.: 1984), 333-337.</ref>He also built the "Hagion Lousma" <ref> the Hagion Lousma was a sacred pool where the emperors would participate in a bathing purification ritual</ref>.
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* the ''Eastern Council of Blachernae'' (Constantinople) in 1285. At this council, a significant statement was produced addressing the theological issue of the 'Filioque'. Despite the concern of Byzantine theologians to oppose the idea of the Filioque and its addition to the creed, there is no reference to it in the '''''Synodikon of Orthodoxy''''' <ref> a collection containing more than sixty anathemas representing the doctrinal decisions of Eastern councils through the fourteenth century.</ref>;
* the original icon of [[Theotokos of Tikhvin|Tikhvin]] ([[Panagia Hodegetria|Hodegetria]]), painted by the Holy [[Apostle Luke]] and kept in the Church of Blachernae for about five hundred years. It was sent to Russia in 1383, before the fall of Constantinople. It is said that fishermen saw it surrounded in lights over the Lake of Ladoga in Russia. The icon was later found on the bank of the Tikhvin River and was placed in the local church. Recently, the icon was kept in Chicago and returned to Russia.
==References==
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==See also==