[1] Soon after the conquest, a mosque was erected south of the central square of the lower town, opposite of the Metropolitan Church of Christos Elkomenos.

According to the local tradition, the building was built on the site of a 16th-century Venetian church dedicated to Saint Peter,[2] bishop of Monemvasia in the eighth century.

[3][4] However, no archaeological evidence seems to attest to an initial presence of a church in the current architecture of the crypts in the lower parts of the monument.

[3] During the second Venetian rule of Monemvasia (1690–1715), the building was converted into a hospice, probably on the initiative of Capuchin monks,[5] or perhaps into a church dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua.

[6] It was reconverted to Muslim worship upon the second Ottoman domination (1715–1821), and then it became a prison upon the independence of Greece in 1830, as attested by the diplomat Thomas Wyse.