The Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey is strongly opposing plans to reconvert Istanbul’s Hagia Sofia basilica into a mosque.
”We want Santa Sofia to remain a museum. It was a Christian church for over 1000 years,” Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople has said. ”If it is to be reconsecrated, then it should go back to being a Christian church, since it was not built to be a mosque.”
The basilica, completed in 537, became a mosque in 1453 with the Ottoman conquest and was made a museum in 1935.