[2] The church is located in Istanbul, in the district of Fatih, in the neighbourhood of Kocamustafapaşa (historically Samatya), at Marmara Caddesi 79.

This church was located near the Helenianai Palace and the monastery of St. Dalmatios,[2] close to an abundant water source (Greek: Hagiasma).

[3] Not far from these buildings and from the sea walls, on a small plateau on the southern slope of the seventh hill of Constantinople, in the Xerolophos quartier,[4] Byzantine Emperor Romanos III Argyros (r. 1028–1034) founded a large monastery dedicated to the Theotokos Peribleptos after his unlucky expedition to Syria.

[5] After the Latin sack of 1204, the church remained for a short time under Greek control, but was later given to Venetian Benedictine monks.

[2] After the end of the Latin Empire, Michael VIII Palaiologos (r. 1261–1282) restored the church and added in the refectory a mosaic representing himself with his wife Theodora and their son Constantine.

He successfully organised the population against the raiders and after confronting them made the area safe again, but that caused a great scandal in Constantinople, since monks were not allowed to fight.

[2] Spanish ambassador Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo (practically the only extant source about the complex in the Byzantine period[8]), who visited Constantinople in 1402, writes that the plan of St. Mary was a central one, with a square nave surmounted by a dome with an atrium and side rooms, similar to the contemporary churches of Hosios Loukas and Daphni Monastery in Greece.

[9] The church, whose walls and floor were also covered with jasper slabs, contained several imperial tombs, placed in two side rooms.

[8] A large refectory adorned with a fresco depicting the Last Supper, rooms for the monks, gardens and vineyards were part of the complex.