The Fenari Isa Mosque in Istanbul's Fatih district was the Lips Monastery. Admiral Constantine Lips founded a nunnery there in 908, in the presence of Emperor Leo VI. Empress Theodora, widow of Michael VIII Palaiologos, built the South Church of Saint John the Baptist and restored the nunnery by 1304. The North Church has a cross-in-square plan and measures about 43 by 31 feet (13 by 9.5 m). Both are built of alternating courses of brick and stone.
Around 1497 and 1498, Fenarizade Alâeddin Ali converted the South Church into a mosque. Fires struck in 1633, 1782 and 1918, and the building was then abandoned. Excavations in 1929 uncovered 22 sarcophagi.
The Byzantine Institute of America restored it in the 1950s and 1960s, and it returned to use as a mosque. A comprehensive restoration ran from 2012 to 2019.
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