St Sophia Old Metropolitan Church

St Sophia Church in Nessebar, also known as the Old Metropolitan Church, is a significant Orthodox building in eastern Bulgaria. It is included in the town's architectural and historical reserve, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the Hundred National Tourist Sites.
The church is a three-aisled basilica with a single semicircular apse projecting in three sides, together with a narthex and atrium, or inner courtyard. Measuring 25.5 metres long, it has side aisles separated from the central nave by rectangular masonry piers and brick arches. A second arcade rises above them, and three arched windows stand in the eastern wall above the apse. The interior was plastered with mortar and decorated with wall paintings. A floor mosaic of multicoloured pebbles complemented its rich appearance.
St Sophia was built immediately after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, when the Diocese of Thrace came under the Patriarch of Constantinople's jurisdiction. It was destroyed by the Avars in the sixth century and rebuilt in the early seventh. The building was remodelled in the ninth century, acquiring its present appearance. During the Middle Ages it served as the cathedral of the Diocese of Mesembria.
In 1257 a Venetian fleet commanded by Giacomo Doro attacked the church and carried the relics of St Theodore Stratelates, the Apostle Andrew the First-Called, St Sixtus and the Apostle Bartholomew to Venice. Over time, by the late eighteenth century, the church fell into neglect.