Designed as the tomb of Constantine the Great, some remains survive near the Sultan Mehmet mosque. The Emperor Constantine was buried at this church in 337. The very first Church of the Apostles was burned down in 532. The rebuilt church was a high-domed basilica. The inner walls had marble slabs rising up to the ceiling. The roof was covered with polished bronze slabs. After the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans, it was used as the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate for a short time. It was demolished in 1461 and replaced by Fatih Mosque. The sarcophagi of the emperors and saints are preserved in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.
Sources:
- John Freely; Ahmet S. Çakmak, Byzantine Monuments of Istanbul. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004,
- Ken Dark and Ferudun Özgümüş, 'New Evidence for the Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles from Fatih Camii, Istanbul', Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 21 (2002), pp. 393-413
- Glanville Downey, 'The Tombs of the Byzantine Emperors in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople', Journal of Hellenic Studies, 79 (1959), pp. 27–51
- Ann Wharton Epstein, 'The Rebuilding and Decoration of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople: A Reconsideration', Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23 (1982), 79-92
- Jonathan Harris, Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium (Hambledon/Continuum, 2007
- Nicolas Mesarites, 'Description of the Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople' ed. tr. G. Downey, in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society; 47 (1957), pp. 855-924.