The Kariye Mosque was formerly a Byzantine church, then a mosque, and then a museum.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared on May 6 that the Kariye Mosque was reopened for worship remotely during a ceremony at the presidential palace in the capital, Ankara.

He had, in 2020, ordered the building to be reconverted into a Muslim place of worship.

His order followed a similarly controversial ruling on the UNESCO-protected Hagia Sophia - a cathedral in Istanbul that was converted into a mosque and then a museum before becoming a mosque again.

The changes were part of Erdogan's efforts to galvanise his more conservative and nationalist supporters.

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In a weekly bulletin against disinformation, the Directorate refuted the claims about a $38 billion deal with the Vatican for Hagia Sophia, stressing that such a thing was "impossible."

"Do not heed baseless news that Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque was sold, or its restoration will last 50 years, during which it will be closed," the bulletin read.

Turkish authorities recently began a long-term restoration for the centuries-old Hagia Sophia, which was converted back into a mosque from a museum in a 2020 court ruling.

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A magnificent example of such a mosaic is in the south gallery of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey.

The mosaic is what as known as the Deesis mosaic.

The mosaic is of Christ, Pantocrator and of Mary and St John.

The mosaic, which is 2.5 times life-size, is somewhat damaged, however, there is sufficient to wonder at the skill of those who created and worked on such a piece.

Each little piece seems so insignificant.

One piece is bright red, another cold blue or dull green, another warm purple, another sharp yellow, another shining gold.

Some look precious, others ordinary.

Some look valuable, others worthless.

Some look gaudy, others delicate.

We can do little with them as individual stones except compare them and judge their beauty and value.

When, however, all these little stones are brought together in one big mosaic, portraying the face of Christ, who would ever question the importance of any one of them?

If one of them, even the least spectacular one, is missing, the face is incomplete.

Together in the one mosaic, each little stone is indispensable and makes a unique contribution to the glory of God.

That's a community; a fellowship of people, each with their own unique colour who together make God visible in the world.

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years.

The Hagia Sophia dates to the sixth century, and for almost a millennium was one of the Christian world's most magnificent and well-known churches, carrying forward the traditions of both the Roman and the Byzantine Empires.

It was first converted into a mosque when the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453, but was then fashioned into a museum by modern Turkey's founding father, Kemal Atatürk, following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.

Atatürk sought to create a secular Turkey that could flourish in the modern world. That required bridging historical divisions, which meant that the Hagia Sophia would be neither a church nor a mosque.

As a museum, it would attract visitors from around the world, serving as both an embodiment of Turkish history and a symbol of forward-looking cosmopolitanism.

By overturning Atatürk's founding vision in this respect, Erdoğan is trying to signal a fundamental change in direction for the country.

After all, it is not as though Istanbul suffers from a scarcity of massive, magnificent, historically significant mosques. Those designed by the Ottoman master architect Sinan reside just nearby.

For more than a decade, Turkey was on track to adopt democratic reforms and align itself with the rest of Europe, even overhauling its constitution and beginning formal accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005.

The country's transformation at the time was both impressive and deeply inspiring to those of us watching from the outside.

But those hopeful days are gone.

Instead of modernizing and moving closer to the rest of Europe, Turkey under Erdoğan has been sinking into the mire of the Middle East.

This fundamental change has many causes, and cannot be placed at the feet of one man.

The country's official dialogue around the Kurdish question has collapsed, and in the summer of 2016, segments of the military, part of the secretive Gülen movement, attempted to stage a coup.

Once a key ally to Erdoğan, the Gülenists' attempted power grab tilted the country in a decidedly more authoritarian direction.

Erdoğan quickly started centralizing government functions and consolidating his own power with a widespread purge of the state and society, followed by a constitutional amendment establishing a presidential political system.

Complicating matters further, the civil war that has been raging in Syria since 2011 increasingly spilled over the border, dragging Turkey into the conflict in numerous destructive ways.

But, for all its faults and recent disappointments, Turkey is still a country where elections matter, and Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) has gradually suffered a loss of popular support. Continue reading

• Carl Bildt was Sweden's foreign minister from 2006 to 2014 and Prime Minister from 1991 to 1994, when he negotiated Sweden's EU accession.

The Council, which represents 350 Churches and over 500 million Christians, says the move would sow division.

The Hagia Sophia has been a museum since 1934.

The president announced his decision last Friday after a court annulled the Hagia Sophia's museum status.

The building was constructed 1,500 years ago as an Orthodox Christian cathedral, but was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in 1453.

It was converted to a museum on the orders of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of modern, secular Turkey.

Religious services have been banned at the Hagia Sophia since it became a museum, but devout Muslims have long campaigned for worship to be allowed.

The Geneva-based World Council of Churches says it feels "grief and dismay" at Erdogan's decision.

"By deciding to convert the Hagia Sophia back to a mosque you have reversed that positive sign of Turkey's openness and changed it to a sign of exclusion and division," Ioan Sauca, interim general secretary, wrote.

The decision "will inevitably create uncertainties, suspicions and mistrust, undermining all our efforts to bring people of different faiths together at the table of dialogue and co-operation.

"In the interests of promoting mutual understanding, respect, dialogue and co-operation, and avoiding cultivating old animosities and divisions, we urgently appeal to you to reconsider and reverse your decision."

The Association for the Protection of Historic Monuments and the Environment argued that the building had been the private property of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed, responsible for turning the church into a mosque.

The issue has highlighted the clash between those who want Turkey to remain secular, and President Erdogan's conservative religious base.

Erdogan says Turkey has exercised its sovereign right in converting the building back to a mosque. The first Muslim prayers would be held on 24 July.

"Like all our mosques, the doors of Hagia Sophia will be wide open to locals and foreigners, Muslims and non-Muslims," he says.

Today Turkey had "435 churches and synagogues open for worship", while "few buildings our ancestors built in Eastern Europe and Balkans stand today."

Unesco has expressed deep regret at the move and called for Turkey to open dialogue "without delay."

The head of the Eastern Orthodox Church has condemned the move, saying it is an "open provocation to the civilised world."

The Church in Russia, home to the world's largest Orthodox Christian community, immediately expressed regret that the Turkish court had not taken its concerns into account when ruling on Hagia Sophia.

And Turkey's most famous author, Orhan Pamuk, told the BBC: "There are millions of secular Turks like me who are crying against this but their voices are not heard."

Source

• BBC
• Image: Anadolu Agency

In improvised remarks after reciting the Angelus, the pope recalled that July 12 is Sea Sunday, when the worldwide Church prays for seafarers.

"And the sea carries me a little farther away in my thoughts: to Istanbul. I think of Hagia Sophia, and I am very saddened," he said, according to an unofficial translation provided by the Holy See Press Office. Read more

At present the fate of the building, that has been a museum since 1934, rests on an upcoming Turkish court ruling.

President Tayyip Erdogan proposed restoring the mosque status of the Hagia Sophia, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The sixth century building, which has served firstly the Christian Byzantine and then the Muslim Ottoman empires, is one of Turkey's most visited monuments today. It is known in Turkish as Ayasofya.

The court is set to rule on a challenge to the Hagia Sophia's current status. The legality of its conversion into a museum during the early years of the modern secular Turkish state founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is under the legal spotlight.

Bartholomew, who is is based in Istanbul, says converting Hagia Sophia into a mosque will disappoint millions of Christians around the world.

For 900 years the Hagia Sophia was the foremost church in Christendom. For the next 500 years after the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul, it became one of Islam's greatest mosques.

It is still a vital centre where East and West embrace, the Patriarce told a church congregation.

Changing its status will "fracture these two worlds" at a time when mankind needs unity more than ever because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he added.

However, groups have campaigned for years for the museums reconversion into a mosque. Erdogan, a pious Muslim, backed their call ahead of local elections last year.

Many Turks argue that mosque status would better reflect the identity of Turkey as an overwhelmingly Muslim country. Recent polls show most Turks support the proposal.

Representatives of the United States and neighbouring Greece say they are concerned about the bid to restore the mosque status of the building.

The U.S. religious freedom envoy, Ambassador Sam Brownback, says it holds enormous spiritual and cultural significance to billions of believers of different faiths around the world. He is calling on Ankara to retain its status.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is not happy with what he sees as international interference.

"This is a matter of national sovereignty," he says.

"What is important is what the Turkish people want."

Source

• Reuters
• Image: Al Jazeera

In announcing their decision June 18, the bishops backed government claims that the monument's future is a question of national sovereignty.

"We are a church deprived of juridical status, so we cannot give any advice on this country's internal questions," the Turkish bishops' conference said in a statement sent to Catholic News Service. Read more

"We want Santa Sofia to remain a museum. It was a Christian church for over 1000 years," Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople has said. "If it is to be reconsecrated, then it should go back to being a Christian church, since it was not built to be a mosque."

The basilica, completed in 537, became a mosque in 1453 with the Ottoman conquest and was made a museum in 1935.

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Worshippers shouted, "Break the chains, let Hagia Sophia Mosque open," and "God is great" before kneeling in prayer as tourists looked on

Turkey's secular laws prevent Muslims and Christians from formal worship within the 6th-century monument, the world's greatest cathedral for almost a millennium before invading Ottomans converted it into a mosque in the 15th century.

"Keeping Hagia Sophia Mosque closed is an insult to our mostly Muslim population of 75 million. It symbolises our ill-treatment by the West," Salih Turhan, head of the Anatolian Youth Association, which organised the event, told the crowd, whose male and female worshippers prayed separately according to Islamic custom.

The government has rejected requests from both Christians and Muslims to hold formal prayers at the site, historically and spiritually significant to adherents of both religions. Continue reading

Originally built as a Christian church, the Hagia Sophia was converted to a mosque by the Ottoman regime in 1453. The basilica was used as a mosque until 1935, when the founder of the modern secular Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal 'Ataturk', transformed it into a museum. The activists of the religious group the Young People of Anatolia, press agency Dogan reports, held a press conference this morning outside the basilica. They asked for Muslims to be allowed to pray again in the Hagia Sophia and announced that they will hold a Friday prayer on the square outside the most famous building in Istanbul.

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