Turning Istanbul's Hagia Sophia cathedral into a mosque will not bar tourists from visiting it, except for the time of prayer, Turkey's Presidency of Religious Affairs said on Tuesday
ANKARA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th July, 2020) Turning Istanbul's Hagia Sophia cathedral into a mosque will not bar tourists from visiting it, except for the time of prayer, Turkey's Presidency of Religious Affairs said on Tuesday.
Last week, Turkey's highest administrative court, the Council of State, annulled the 1934 decree converting Hagia Sophia into a museum, meaning it can now be used as a mosque. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed the necessary decree.
"The access of Hagia Sophia to visitors, with the exception of Namaz [a Muslim prayer], is not an issue from a religious point of view," the presidency said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas called the latest Turkish initiative incomprehensible and stated that it would complicate the dialogue between Athens and Ankara while talking to the Greek Skai tv channel.
Hagia Sophia was founded by Byzantine Emperor Justinian as a cathedral and was opened on December 27, 537. The church, considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture, was the world's largest building for over a thousand years. After the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans and the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the cathedral was converted into a mosque, but since 1934, the building, by a decree of the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, became a museum and was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
