Hagia Sophia
— — the small sister of the great church.
Not only on a wall.
“An eighth-century Byzantine church in the old quarter of Thessaloniki, modelled on Justinian's Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and built on the ruins of an earlier basilica. The interior holds a ninth-century mosaic of the Ascension across the dome and a later Theotokos in the apse, partly recovered after the Ottoman conversion to a mosque in 1523. UNESCO inscribed it in 1988 among Thessaloniki's Paleochristian and Byzantine monuments.
Hagia Sophia, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Hagia Sophia of Thessaloniki sits in the city's old town a few blocks back from the waterfront of the Thermaic Gulf. The present church was built in the late seventh or early eighth century on the foundations of a fifth-century basilica destroyed by earthquake. Its cross-in-square plan and central dome were modelled on the sixth-century Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. UNESCO inscribed it in 1988 as part of the Paleochristian and Byzantine Monuments of Thessalonika, one of fifteen monuments in the city protected under that listing.
The dome carries an Ascension mosaic dated to roughly 885, set against a gold ground with the twelve apostles ringed around the rim and the figure of the Theotokos beneath the rising Christ. The apse holds a later mosaic of the Virgin enthroned, partly overlaid in the Iconoclast period with a cross then replaced again in the ninth century. The Ottomans converted the building to a mosque in 1523 after their conquest, whitewashed the figural work, and added a minaret which was removed after 1912 when Thessaloniki returned to Greece.
The church operates as an active parish of the Greek Orthodox Church and is open daily outside the hours of liturgy, with no admission charge. The square in front holds a stand of plane trees and a fountain and is one of the quieter open spaces in the old town. It sits about 350 metres inland from the White Tower along Egnatia Street, walkable from the seafront promenade in under ten minutes, and is included on most heritage walking routes through the upper city.