‘This is Hagia Sophia breaking away from its chains of captivity. It was the greatest dream of our youth … It was the yearning of our people and it has been accomplished.’
These were the words of the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, after he led Muslim worshippers in the first prayers in Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia. The Turkish leader and an entourage of senior ministers arrived for the service in the heart of Istanbul’s historic district on 24 July. The President began with a recital from the Qur’an before the head of Turkey’s religious authority, Ali Erbas, continued the formal prayers.
It was the first prayer gathering at Hagia Sophia since Erdoğan’s controversial declaration that the monument (which over the centuries has served as a cathedral, a mosque, and a museum) would be turned back into a Muslim house of worship.
Outside the former church, which was the world’s largest for over a thousand years (360-1453AD), approximately 350,000 arrived to join the President in Islamic worship. Many had arrived on buses from all over the country the night before, camping in the square overnight.
Covering Christian images
Turkish officials have said that Hagia Sophia will still be open to non-Muslim visitors and tourists when prayer services are not in operation. However, the Diyanet, Turkey’s religious authority, said Christian icons would be curtained off and unlit. At the first prayer service, certain mosaics were concealed with either curtains or lasers.
In an interview with broadcaster NTV, presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said that some montages of Mary and Gabriel that were positioned in the direction of Qiblah, where Muslims face during prayers, would be covered with curtains.
Fear of state persecution
For Christians in Turkey the fear is that the Turkish state will now officially persecute them to guarantee their subservience to Islamic rule. In this way Turkey is likely to follow the example of Pakistan, by subordinating the Turkish legal system to sharia law, while also encouraging ever more extreme versions of Sunni Islamism.
At least 16 foreign Christian workers have already been expelled from Turkey in 2020. The ejections of two American Christians – Joy Subaşıgüller, who is married to a Turkish pastor, and Pastor Zach Balon of New Hope Church in Istanbul – have been noted across many media outlets.
Some secular Turkish people are also very unhappy about the reconversion of Hagai Sophia. Nobel Prize-winning author, Orhan Pamuk said that, ‘Turks are proud to be a secular Muslim nation. Now converting it back into a mosque will take away that pride from the nation. There are millions of secular Turks like me who are crying [out] against this, but their voices are not heard.’
Since Istanbul was once Greek and Christian, Turkey’s decision to reconvert the ancient Hagia Sophia has also sparked a war of words between Athens and Ankara. Ironically, Hagia Sophia means ‘divine wisdom’ in Greek.
