Church of Hagia Sophia in Turkey to Be Converted to Mosque

After a government ruling about the church-cum-museum; centuries-old art at risk

One of the most important monuments of late Byzantium, the 13th-century Church of Hagia Sophia in the Black Sea city of Trabzon, which is now a museum, will be converted into a mosque, after a legal battle that has dramatic implications for other major historical sites in Turkey. Many in Turkey believe that the Church of Hagia Sophia is a stalking horse for the possible re-conversion of its more famous namesake in Istanbul, the Hagia Sophia Museum (Ayasofya Müzesi).

For around 50 years, responsibility for the Church of Hagia Sophia in Trabzon has rested with Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The courts now accept the claim made by the General Directorate of Pious Foundations, the government body responsible for most of the country's historical mosques, that this has been an "illegal occupation". The court has ruled that Hagia Sophia is an inalienable part of the foundation of Sultan Mehmed II who first turned the church into a mosque after his conquest of the Empire of Trebizond in 1462.

Comments

[RBS]

If Mehmed II turned what was originally a church into a mosque, wouldn't that be an illegal occupation as well?

[albo]

OBL and millions of Islamists have been torqued for centuries that one of Islam's conquests, Andalusia, was reconquered and turned back to Christian hands. Once it's Islamic, it can't go back, they say.

So it's a bit of hypocrisy to do the same thing to the church that was once the holiest in Christendom. But not surprising.

[buybuydandavis]

They're cultural imperialists, attempting to disappear other cultures into the Memory Hole.

That was the point of attacking the Twin Towers - to eradicate a *symbol* of what they hated and the power it possessed.