It is placed inside the walled city, and not far from the church of Saint John of Stoudion, on the slopes of the seventh hill of Constantinople near the sea of Marmara.

At the beginning of the 5th century, Princess Arcadia, sister of Emperor Theodosius II (r. 408–450), ordered the construction, near the Gate of Saturninus,[1] of a monastery dedicated to Saint Andrew.

The monastery of Saint Andrew was known under the appellation "by-the-Judgment", after the place where it lay, named "the Judgment" (ή Κρίσις, hē Krisis).

[3] Saint Andrew of Crete, a martyr of the fight against Byzantine Iconoclasm, killed on 20 November 766 in the Forum Bovis because of his opposition to the iconoclastic policies of Emperor Constantine V (r. 741–775), was buried there.

During the second half of the ninth century, Emperor Basil I (r. 867–886) wholly rebuilt the church, which possibly had been damaged during the iconoclastic fights.

Around 1284, Princess Theodora Raoulaina, niece of Michael VIII Palaiologos (r. 1259–1282) and wife of protovestiarios John Raoul Petraliphas, rebuilt the monastery and the church, deserving the appellation of second ktētorissa.

[10] At the beginning of the 17th century, Defterdar (treasury minister) Ekmekçizade Ahmet Paşa (d. 1618) let build a Medrese, the gates of the complex, a zaviye,[11] and a mekteb (school).

[12] About one century later Hekimbaşı (Sultan's chief physician) Giridli Nuh Efendi (d. 1707) closed the Tekke and enlarged the Medrese,[12] while in 1737 Kızlar Ağası Hacı Beşir Ağa erected in the yard a column-shaped fountain.

The eastern arch sustaining the main dome is prolonged into a barrel vault bema, flanked by niches which originally led to the Prothesis and Diaconicon.

[16] The west arch sustaining the dome is filled in with a triple arcade resting on two marble columns topped by cubic capitals.

These two bays are covered with groined vaults put on ionic capitals, which resemble those used in the Church of Saints Sergius and Baccus.

The square base of the drum and the dome itself are faced with polished stone alternating with courses of three bricks set in a thick bed of mortar.

[5] A beautiful Byzantine carved door frame, possibly of the sixth century, belonging to the Medrese, has been brought to the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.