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The '''Church of Panagia Blachernae''' (full name in Greek: ''Θεοτòκος τών Βλαχερνών'' (pr. Theotókos tón Blachernón); Turkish name: '''Meryem Ana Kilisesi'') is located in Istanbul, in the district of Fatih, in the neighbourhood of Ayvansaray, along ''Mustafa Paşa Bostanı Sokak''. It lies a few hundred meters inside the walled city, at a short distance from the shore of the Golden Horn. The building is protected by a high wall, and preceded by a garden. ==History==The church is near the northern tip of the walls of Theodosios 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>.