ABSTRACT
The church of Hagia Sophia stands on an isolated spur of rock just above the Black Sea some two kilometres to the west of the citadel of Trebizond, the heart of the medieval city (Fig. 2). The church is now engulfed by a suburb of the city, enclosed by high-rise buildings and cut off from the sea by the coastal highway, but originally it stood on the edge of the water, well outside the medieval city. Photographs taken before it was surrounded by housing show the magnificent location of the church and how it dominated the fields around (plate II). It was a striking statement to mark the western approach to the imperial city of the Grand Komnenoi.
