HAGIA SOPHIA: TURKEY’S PUSH AGAINST CHRISTIANITY

 Turkish President’s recent order allowing the historic Hagia Sophia, which was once a church, to be opened for Muslim prayers has upset millions of Christians across the world.

 Pope Francis has said he was “very distressed” over Turkey’s decision to convert the Byzantine-era monument Hagia Sophia back into a mosque. “My thoughts go to Istanbul. I’m thinking about Hagia Sophia. I am very distressed,” the pontiff said in the Vatican’s first reaction to a decision that has drawn international criticism.

 Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople lamented the decision. He said Hagia Sophia belongs not only to those who own it at the moment but to all humanity. “The Turkish people have the great responsibility and honour to make the universality of this wonderful monument shine,” he said, adding that as a museum it serves as a “symbolic place of encounter, dialogue, solidarity and mutual understanding between Christianity and Islam.”

 Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians, further warned conversation would “push millions of Christians around the world against Islam.”

 The decree followed a ruling from Turkey’s top administrative court which revoked Hagia Sophia’s status as a museum, saying the ancient building's conversion was illegal. Since 1934, the building has been a living example of religious harmony in the form of stone. In recent years it has become the most popular tourist attraction in Turkey, drawing over 3.5 million visitors during 2019.

 Hagia Sophia was built by the Byzantine Christian Emperor Justinian in 537 and dedicated to Divine Wisdom. The structure was originally built to become the seat of the Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church and remained so for approximately 900 years. After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the basilica was converted into a mosque and the city renamed Istanbul. The structure of the monument was then subjected to several interior and exterior changes where Orthodox symbols were removed or plastered upon and minarets were added to the exterior of the structure. For a long time, the Hagia Sophia was Istanbul’s most important mosque.

 In 1934, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, turned Hagia Sophia into a museum, which later became a UNESCO world heritage site.

  When Turkish President Erdogan entered politics a little less than three decades ago in Turkey, observers say the status of the Hagia Sophia was not particularly on his agenda. On the contrary, he once objected to the calls to convert it into a mosque. But his rhetoric changed in 2019 during municipal elections in Istanbul that he ended up losing.

 The next instance when Erdogan brought up the subject of converting the Hagia Sophia coincided with US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Observers believe that Erdogan’s plans for the conversion of the Hagia Sophia are closely connected with his attempts to score political points more than anything else and perhaps to drum up political support that he has seen diminishing following his loss in Istanbul’s municipal elections last year.