Restoration of the Church of the Theotokos at Neorion
The Greek synaxarion for August 31 closes the church year with three notices: the deposition of the Cincture of the Theotokos at the Chalkoprateia, the miracle wrought by the Cincture upon the empress Zoe, and — third and briefest — the renewal of the church of the Most Holy Theotokos at the Neorion, one of the harbour quarters on the Golden Horn at Constantinople. Of this last commemoration almost nothing survives: a church of the Mother of God in the dockyard district, restored or rebuilt at some point in the Byzantine centuries, at which — the notice says — miracles were worked for those who came to it in faith. The entry is given here at the length the record allows, which is short.
The Neorion
The Neorion (τὸ Νεώριον, "the dockyard") was the older of the two great harbours on the Golden Horn side of Constantinople, on the northern shore of the city between the Perama and the quarter of the tanners, a little east of the later Venetian and Genoese concessions. It was already a working harbour of Byzantion before Constantine, and it kept its name and its trade all through the Byzantine period: naval stores, shipbuilding, customs, the noise and stink of a port. The quarter had its own churches, as every quarter of the City did, and one of them was a church of the Theotokos.
The commemoration
What the synaxarion records is not a foundation but a renewal — ἀνάμνησις τῶν ἐγκαινίων, the memory of the encaenia, the re-dedication of a church that had been rebuilt, repaired or restored to use. Constantinople had scores of such commemorations, the natural consequence of a city that burned, shook and was sacked at intervals of a generation, and its calendar is full of them: the Byzantine church year is in part a register of buildings put right.
Neither the date of the restoration nor the emperor who made it is transmitted in the printed synaxarion, and the topographical literature has not identified the building with certainty. The notice adds only that the place received grace and that many miracles were worked there for those who came in faith — the standard formula for a shrine with a healing cultus, and probably a spring or a wonderworking icon, though the notice does not say which.
That is the whole of it. Nothing is added here, because nothing more is known, and this collection does not manufacture a history where the record has none.
Why it is on this day
The placing is not accidental. August 31 is a Marian day and the last day of the church year, and the compilers gathered onto it what Constantinopolitan memories of the Mother of God were left over: the Girdle at the Chalkoprateia, the healing of the empress, and this small dedication down by the docks. A great relic, an imperial miracle, and a parish church in a harbour quarter — the three notices together are a fair picture of what Marian devotion in the City actually consisted of.
Feast and commemoration
August 31 (church date; New Calendar civil August 31, Old Calendar civil September 13), as the third and last notice of the Greek synaxarion for the day, subordinate throughout to the Placing of the Cincture of the Theotokos, whose office is sung. The commemoration is carried in the Greek books and in the OCA calendar (as "the Restoration of the Church of the Theotokos at Neorion"); it is not separately noted in most Slavonic day-lists. No proper hymns, readings or rank are appointed for it.
Appointed readings
Epistle — Hebrews 3:1–4
1Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; 2Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. 3For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. 4For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.
Gospel — Matthew 16:13–18
13When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? 14And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. 15He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 16And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. 17And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 18And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Iconography
There is no iconography proper to this commemoration. Byzantine dedication-feasts of individual churches were normally kept with the icon of the church's titular — here, the Mother of God — and no image of the Neorion building or of its restoration is known to survive; the church itself has not been securely identified on the ground. No image is stored for this entry.