After Hagia Sophia, Turkey converts a second historic Byzantine church right into a mosque

ISTANBUL (RNS) — Lots of of worshippers crammed the slender streets of Istanbul’s Fatih district on Friday to listen to the sounds of Friday prayers ringing out from the newly inaugurated Kariye Mosque. 

As soon as generally known as the Chora Church, the location spent the final 79 years as a museum. However it’s now the newest construction to be transformed again right into a mosque by the federal government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, following the conversion of Hagia Sophia in 2020. Whereas considered as a triumph by many Turkish Muslims, the Greek Orthodox Church has decried it as an “ill-advised choice” that “makes a mockery of the Turkish authorities’s dedication to spiritual tolerance and spiritual freedom.”

Chora’s conversion was introduced shortly after Hagia Sophia’s, however its opening for prayer was delayed by years of restoration work. 

The exhibiting for the primary Friday prayers at Kariye was comparatively quiet in comparison with Hagia Sophia, which drew a whole bunch of hundreds who crammed the streets with prayer rugs for blocks and blocks away from the constructing. In contrast, the group on Friday was comparatively common for a mosque in one in all Istanbul’s extra religiously conservative neighborhoods, the place Friday worshippers continuously spill out onto the streets.

Each the Chora Church and Hagia Sophia are 4th-century Byzantine constructions. They spent practically a millennium as Christian holy websites earlier than being transformed to mosques by the Ottomans after their conquest of Constantinople within the fifteenth century. Regardless of their conversions, they remained revered by Orthodox Christians. After the founding of a secular Turkish Republic within the early twentieth century, the choice was made for each to be neither mosque nor church however merely museums.

“Each Hagia Sophia and Chora embodied Byzantine and Ottoman pasts, and so they turned symbols of co-existence and multi-faith residing practices. Their conversion basically implies a hierarchy, prioritizing the Islamic previous over all different layers, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Jewish, Syriac, et al,” Dr. Özgür Kaymak, a lecturer and researcher on minority rights at Istanbul’s MEF College, informed Faith Information Service in an e mail. 

Rededicating the websites as mosques is greater than only a standing change. In accordance with Islamic custom, art work of human figures are forbidden in locations of prayer, whereas in Orthodox Church buildings, icons of Christ, saints and different biblical figures are a defining function.  

In Hagia Sophia, the mosaics of Jesus and Mary have been lined with curtains because the conversion. Whereas Erdoğan promised Hagia Sophia would stay absolutely accessible and free to all guests, Turkey reneged on that earlier this yr, reimposing an entrance price on vacationers and relegating them to the higher stage, whereas the principle flooring is unique to Muslim worshippers. 

Observers have additionally criticized the Turkish Directorate of Faith’s caretaking of the location, noting injury that didn’t exist when it was underneath the purview of the Ministry of Tradition and Tourism.

Although Chora is considerably smaller than Hagia Sophia, it’s dwelling to a number of the best-preserved examples of late-Byzantine artwork, together with mosaics, icons and frescoes, and is taken into account a UNESCO World Heritage web site. 

“For us it’s an important place as a result of it remembers our tradition and our traditions right here,” Father Evangelos Markantonis, an Orthodox priest who was main a gaggle of theology college students to Chora on Friday, informed Faith Information Service. 

“Although we can not venerate as Orthodox Christians, we’ve got to attempt to discover issues we may be united on. Solely with dialogue and good deeds can we proceed our lives,” Markantonis, who can be a professor on the College of Athens, stated when requested in regards to the controversy.

Erdoğan had lengthy refused calls from his proper to transform church buildings like Hagia Sophia and Chora, telling supporters in 2019 to fill the close by Sultan Ahmet Mosque (additionally identified in English because the Blue Mosque) earlier than they talked about needing to hope in Hagia Sophia. 

Nonetheless, he made an about-turn in 2020. 

“My pricey nation, the conquest of Istanbul and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia right into a Mosque are among the many most wonderful chapters in Turkish historical past,” Erdoğan stated on the time in a speech inaugurating the Hagia Sophia as a mosque. 

“That is probably the most honorable day that Islam has been wanting ahead to, Greek Constantinople has turn out to be Turkish Istanbul,” he added, quoting the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet.

“The resurrection of Hagia Sophia heralds the liberation of the al-Aqsa Mosque. The resurrection of Hagia Sophia is the footsteps of the desire of Muslims the world over to return out of the interregnum,” Erdoğan stated in his concluding remarks. 

Chora’s opening because the Kariye Mosque comes simply weeks after Erdoğan’s Justice and Improvement Social gathering (AKP) suffered its largest electoral defeat in twenty years throughout Turkey’s nationwide municipal elections. 

“The latest conversion of Chora right into a mosque could also be on account of Erdoğan’s many issues, together with his geopolitical energy politics, his attraction to religio-nationalism to revive his electoral reputation after the March elections or his tactic to divert consideration from Turkey’s financial downturn,” Kaymak stated. 

Many analysts have attributed the loss to AKP bleeding votes to the extra Islamist-leaning New Welfare Social gathering, which has pressured Erdogan over his response to the Israel-Hamas warfare and humanitarian scenario within the Gaza Strip. 

Muslim worshippers on the mosque on Friday stated they considered its rededication as an Islamic web site to be a nationwide win for Turkey.

“This mosque is without doubt one of the symbols of the Conquest. We’re proud and completely satisfied. There are very stunning frescoes inside. They have been additionally properly renovated earlier than they have been closed. Might or not it’s good for our nation and our nation,” a bystander, Ahmet Öteyüzoğlu, informed Turkish media.

“Thank God for lately. Not everybody has the chance of their lifetime,” one other bystander named Mehmet Çelik informed the Turkish information service Anadolu Company, in reference to having been in a position to pray at each the rededicated Hagia Sophia and Kariye Mosques.

Nonetheless, Greece, the U.S. State Division and Orthodox Christian establishments worldwide have all criticized the choice to revert the construction right into a mosque.

“I wish to publicly specific my intense dissatisfaction, deciphering the sentiments of all Greek ladies and men, for the utterly pointless conversion of a historic Byzantine temple, the Monastery of Chora, right into a mosque. It’s, I consider, an motion that offends the wealthy historical past of Istanbul itself as a crossroads of cultures,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis stated shortly earlier than leaving for Turkey for a deliberate assembly with Erdogan.

“We encourage the Turkish authorities to protect and guarantee entry to websites and buildings which have hosted completely different non secular communities in a method that respects their various histories,” a State Division spokesperson stated in response to questions from Greek media. 

“The Turkish authorities’s appropriation of each because the property of 1 religion group not solely constitutes one more signal of that authorities’s contempt for Turkey’s wealthy Orthodox Christian heritage however additional imperils the non secular freedom of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the remaining Christians of that land,” the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate stated in a press release.

(The date in paragraph 13 has been corrected from 2018 to 2019. We apologize for the error.)