Hagia Sophia

Russia Today and the BBC both report that the Hagia Sophia (The Church of Holy Wisdom), the single largest Church in Byzantium, is to be repurposed as a mosque. This move ends 86 years of the building serving a “neutral purpose” as a museum, where neither Muslim nor Christian was allowed to pray in open sight. This move is understandably tragic for Orthodox Christians, particularly the Greeks, but there are several ways to understand this situation.

When the caustic Evelyn Waugh visited the majestic sixth century creation of Emperor Justinian, one subsequently enlarged, enriched and encrusted by various rulers, he felt underwhelmed.  “‘Agia’ will always win the day for one,” he wrote of Istanbul’s holiest of holies, Hagia Sophia, in 1930. “A more recondite snobbism is to say ‘Aya Sofia’, but except in a very sophisticated[Read More...]



Article first appeared on Hellenic Insider…