With the birth of a secular Turkish Republic, the Hagia Sophia became a museum in 1935. ... One places a shawl over her head and briefly kneels to make the sign of the cross, ...

The current Hagia Sophia was built in the 6th century when Constantinople — as Istanbul was then called — was the heart of the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire that emerged as Ancient Rome ...

Pentcheva argues that Hagia Sophia’s mystical brilliance reveals itself fully only if it is viewed as a vessel for animated light — and sound. Image The building was reopened for worship for ...

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed a decree July 10 converting Hagia Sophia into a mosque, hours after a court declared that the building’s conversion into a museum in 1934 was illegal.

Hagia Sophia’s eclectic design makes it a part of the mixed, ... cross-pollinated cultural zone where all kinds of art forms and ideas have melded. As a result, ...

From 1915 to 1923, the Ottoman Empire, the forerunner of modern Turkey, systematically killed more than 2 million Christians — 1.5 million ­Armenians and half a million Syriacs, Assyro ...

In 2013, CT reported on the similarly named Church of Hagia Sophia, on the Black Sea coastal city of Trabzon. And in 2019, perhaps as a prelude , the historic Chora church was converted into a mosque.

The Hagia Sophia, located in Istanbul, Turkey, is a major historical and artistic monument famous for having been used by different religions. The UNESCO World Heritage Site was originally ...

In 1935, Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern, secular Turkey, made it a museum, and Hagia Sophia was opened to all as a cultural and scientific site. It became a tremendous tourist attraction.

Voices The debate over the future of Hagia Sophia tells you everything you need to know about modern Turkey. The monument that served as the centre of Christianity for 900 years and as a mosque ...

Hagia Sophia was built as a church around AD 530 and was used as a church until the Ottoman Sultan Mohammad the Conqueror converted it into a masjid (i.e., mosque).