Erdogan converts another former Istanbul church into mosque
Published on: Saturday, August 22, 2020
By: AFP
Kariye Museum. (Image: Pinterest)
ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday ordered another ancient Orthodox church that became a mosque and then a popular Istanbul museum to be turned back into a place of Muslim worship.The decision to transform the Kariye Museum into a mosque came just a month after a similarly controversial conversion for the Unesco World Heritage-recognised Hagia Sophia.ADVERTISEMENT
The 1,000-year-old building’s history closely mirrors that of the Hagia Sophia – its bigger neighbour on the historic western bank of the Golden Horn on the European side of Istanbul.
The Holy Saviour in Chora was a medieval Byzantine church decorated with 14th-century frescoes of the Last Judgement that remain treasured in the Christian world.
It was originally converted into the Kariye Mosque half a century after the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks.
It became the Kariye Museum after World War II as Turkey pushed ahead with the creation of a more secular new republic out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.ADVERTISEMENT
A group of American art historians then helped restore the original church’s mosaics and opened them up for public display in 1958.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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But Erdogan has in the past few years placed a greater emphasis on the battles that resulted in the defeat of Byzantium by the Ottomans. Turkey’s top administrative court approved the museum’s conversion into a mosque in November.
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An AFP reporter who visited the site shortly after Erdogan’s decree was published said the museum remained open to visitors – unlike the Hagia Sophia which was shut for conversion right away.