Ten months after Hagia Sophia of Constantinople was converted into a Mosque, news reports are surfacing of the terrible condition in which Saint Justinian’s Church is in. There is dust throughout the whole Church, knobs are broken, and cables are hanging throughout the Cathedral. President Erdogan’s promises regarding Hagia Sophia have obviously not been kept.
Once Hagia Sophia was converted into a Mosque, it was easy to predict that the Church would be altered and would not be protected. President Erdogan is a fanatic and was unlikely to recognize the significance of Hagia Sophia for either Christians or for secular interests who were interested in the preservation of the Great Church. UNESCO and the various secular interests waited much too long to speak to the Turkish government about Hagia Sophia.
The Greek Government and the Orthodox Church of Greece also waited much too long to make international appeals for Hagia Sophia. By the time any of them began protesting, the Turkish government had been fully committed to the conversion of the Great Church. The question now is what comes next?
It is is crucial that UNESCO fulfills commitments pledged to examine Hagia Sophia and to document the condition of the Great Church and any and all damage done to this remarkable Christian edifice. The Turkish government can do as it wishes regarding Hagia Sophia as no one at this point can do anything about it. However, Turkey should be condemned internationally and the Erdogan government should be treated as a pariah government.
UNESCO and various academics and related organizations should be willing to condemn Turkey. Credit should be given to secular Turkish officials who for nearly eighty five years were responsible for the upkeep of Hagia Sophia. At least they preserved the iconography and the building.
It is obvious that the Erdogan government took Hagia Sophia from the more rational and responsible officials of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and gave them to the ignorant followers of Erdogan. This is utterly contemptible and worthy of international condemnation. It is also a sign of darker things to come from the Erdogan government in the realms of external aggression against neighboring countries such as Greece.
One reply on “Hagia Sophia Diaries 24”
Turning Hagia Sophia into a Mosque was just one more example of Turkish intolerance for Orthodox Christianity and their insatiable desire to promote ‘in your face’ policies and actions. The Erdogan regime is particularly bad regarding this, but it has been going on to some extent or another for many decades. Turkey has little cultural identity, so they promote endless ultra-nationalism to attempt to bind together their disparate groups. Uniting Moslems around confrontational actions against minority Christians is a tried and true recipe in Turkey, they have been doing it for a long, long time. Regardless, UNESCO and other groups need to back up their high-minded words with some tangible actions and holding Turkey to accounts for the deplorable condition of Hagia Sophia is a good first step.