Most historians ascribe the foundation of this convent to the Emperor Romanus I Lecapenus ( 920 - 944), though Pseudo-Codinus mentions the existence of an earlier monastery in the 8th century. The Myrelaion was a nunnery to which many members of the imperial family made generous donations. Anna Dalassena, mother of Alexius I Comnenus, ceded to the monastery the island of Leros, as recorded in documents of the years 1085 and 1087. Several members of the Macedonian Dynasty and of the Dynasty of the Comneni were buried in the convent. Petrus Gyllius (1561) was the first to identify the monastery of the Myrelaion with the Bodrum Camii. It is not certain in whose name this church had been consecrated. According to the "Life of St. Andrew of Salou", (lOth century), the church appears to have belonged to the convent dedicated to the Theotokos. A miracle-working icon is also related to the Theotokos.

The monastery, converted after the Conquest into a mosque (Bodrum Camii), was destroyed by fire twice, in 1784 and on 23 July 1911. In 1930, D. Talbot-Rice and The. Makridis excavated the site in an attempt to find the tombs of Romanus's family. Today the only surviving part of the Byzantine monastery is the katholikon, a church of the .cross-in-square plan with a dome resting on four piers. Three apses, polygonal on the outside with the middle one larger, project from the east end, while a transverse narthex runs along the west side. The architecture of the church is considered a masterpiece. The exterior is articulated by alternating half-cylindrical brick buttresses and arched openings, the symmetrical vaulted roofs of the cross-arms and the elegant dome.

The circular cistern preserved to the NW of the church is quite remarkable. Seventy of the various-sized columns that supported the roof have survived. The Bodrum Camii was consolidated and restored in the last twenty years. Occasional information on the monastery of the Myrelaion is provided by the Byzantine historians John Scylitzes, Leo Grammaticus, George Cedrenus, George Codinus. In addition to the traditional appelation of "Myrelaion", Codinus also uses for the convent the name of "Myrodynon".