The narrow lanes above Olymbiados Street and near the north-west city wall are adorned by the elegant Church of St Catherine. We do not know its original name, nor when it was founded. Features of the architecture and the artwork suggest the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century; while scientific investigations based on tree-ring dating indicate the period before 1310.

The church is a complex tetrastyle cross-in-square with five domes and an ambulatory terminating in two chapels at the east end; a type which was very common in Palaiologan Thessaloniki. The carefully constructed concealed-course masonry, the decorative brickwork, the brick demi-columns, the recesses in the domes, the stepped arches, the window arcades, and the large double and triple openings on three of the facades all make the monument one of the most important examples of Macedonian architecture from the Palaiologan renaissance. Glazed tiles and marble members from earlier monuments further enliven the facades.

The fragmentarily preserved frescoes were discovered during restoration work in 1947-51, and were found to have been painted in a single phase (in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century). Co-officiating hierarchs and the Communion of the Apostles survive in the sanctuary, fragmentary scenes from the life of Christ in the naos, angels and prophets in the dome, and figures of ascetic saints in the narthex. The choice of subjects suggests that the church belonged to a monastery and was originally dedicated to Christ. The bulky style of the robust figures, the expressive faces, and the rich palette are characteristic features of Thessaloniki's various artistic circles in the early decades of the Palaiologan renaissance.

After the city fell to the Ottomans, the church was converted into a mosque and named the Yakub Pasha Ҫamii ("mosque of Yakub Pasha") and the frescoes were plastered over. Consolidation work was carried out after the earthquake of 1978.