Church of Hosios David, Byzantine church in Ano Poli, Thessaloniki, Greece
The Church of Hosios David is a Byzantine building with a square base, rounded apse, and a Greek cross floor plan organized into four corner sections. Paired windows positioned along the cross arms and in the sanctuary apse allow light to illuminate the interior spaces.
Built at the end of the 5th or start of the 6th century over a Roman bath, the church was originally dedicated to Christ the Saviour or the Prophet Zachariah. Its apse mosaic was funded by an anonymous woman, identified by tradition as Theodora, daughter of Emperor Maximian. Converted into a mosque, called Suluca or Kerametin, under Ottoman rule, it returned to Christian worship in 1921, when it received the name Hosios David.
The name Hosios David was wrongly attached to the church only in the early 20th century and then stuck; it was originally dedicated to Christ the Saviour or, by another account, to the Prophet Zachariah. The building takes its other name, Latomos Monastery, from the stone quarries that once worked the surrounding area. It still functions as a church of the Metropolis of Thessaloniki.
The church stands at the end of Agias Sofias street in Ano Poli, near the city's upper walls; the original west entrance was destroyed, so visitors enter from the south side. The minaret base and its spiral staircase survive at the south-west corner bay. The Agiasma of the Holy Belt, a spring emerging from a coloured rock with stalactites, lies at Timotheou 13, northeast of the church.
The apse mosaic depicts the vision of Ezekiel: Christ as a young Emmanuel seated on the arc of the rainbow, with the four rivers of Paradise flowing beneath his feet and the symbols of the four Evangelists around him. The prophets Ezekiel and Habakkuk (or Isaiah) stand at the lower corners. Placing this subject in an apse is found nowhere else in the world.
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