23rd February 532 – Byzantine emperor Justinian I lays the foundation stone of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia [Image: Arild Vågen, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24932378]
The Hagia Sophia, or the ‘Church of Holy Wisdom’ in Constantinople (now Istanbul) is one of the greatest buildings in world history, and for almost 1 000 years was the largest cathedral on Earth. It is one of the first buildings in the world to have a fully pendentive dome (a curved triangle of vaulting formed by the intersection of a dome with its supporting arches). The church is widely considered the pinnacle of Eastern Roman (Byzantine) design philosophy and construction and was once described by a Slavic envoy as ‘the house of God on Earth’.
The contemporary historian Procopius, writing in the year 537, described it thus:
‘[The church] is distinguished by indescribable beauty, excelling both in its size, and in the harmony of its measures, having no part excessive and none deficient; being more magnificent than ordinary buildings, and much more elegant than those which are not of so just a proportion. The church is singularly full of light and sunshine; you would declare that the place is not lighted by the sun from without, but that the rays are produced within itself, such an abundance of light is poured into this church.’
And
‘No one ever became weary of this spectacle, but those who are in the church delight in what they see, and, when they leave, magnify it in their talk. Moreover, it is impossible accurately to describe the gold, and silver, and gems, presented by the Emperor Justinian, but by the description of one part, I leave the rest to be inferred. That part of the church which is especially sacred, and where the priests alone are allowed to enter, which is called the Sanctuary, contains forty thousand pounds’ weight of silver.’
Mosaic depicting a crowned Justinian [Image: Petar Milošević, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40035957]
The massive church was built on the site of an older church which was burned down during the Nika riots against the emperor Justinian. After the suppression of the riots, Justinian sought to rebuild the city which had been heavily damaged by the riots, and on 23 February 532 laid the foundation stone of one of his reign’s most enduring legacies.
Construction of church depicted in the 14th century codex Manasses Chronicle
The church would remain an Eastern Orthodox church until the capture of Constantinople by Catholic crusaders in 1204 and the establishment of the Latin Empire. It would return to being an Eastern Orthodox church in 1261 when the Eastern Roman Empire was restored. The church would switch back and forth between Catholic and Eastern Orthodox as the Emperors of the collapsing Eastern Roman empire sought to reconcile with the Pope to secure western allies against the Turks.
In 1453 the Ottoman Turks under Mehmed the Conqueror finally conquered the city and on the day of their conquest converted the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. All Christian symbols were removed from the church and the icons which covered the walls were plastered over. The Ottomans would also erect four minarets around the building to further solidify its status as a mosque.
The Ottomans would go on to construct the nearby Sultan Ahmed Mosque (The Blue Mosque) in a similar design in 1616, and tourists today often confuse the two buildings.
Hagia Sophia, seen from the Imperial Gate of the Topkapı Palace, with the Fountain of Ahmed III on the left and the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in the distance. Lithograph by Louis Haghe after Gaspard Fossati (1852)
The Hagia Sohpia would remain a mosque until 1931 when the new secular Turkish Republic converted the building from a mosque into a museum.
Abdulmejid II (ruled 1922–24), the last Ottoman caliph, passing Hagia Sophia on the way to his coronation. The Abolition of the Caliphate was one of Atatürk’s Reforms
Since then it has remained as one of Turkey’s most visited tourist attractions. Some of the ancient Christan icons were uncovered and the museum showed off features of the building from when it was a church and a mosque.
In July 2020, the Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared that the museum would be reclassified as once again as a mosque. The Christan symbols on the walls were this time covered with drapes rather than plastered over. The building is today a working mosque, open to visitors in the same way as churches such as St Paul’s in Rome, Notre-Dame in Paris and Canterbury Cathedral in England.
On 22 July 2020, in the opening sermon of the re-established mosque, the cleric declared the following: ‘Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror dedicated this magnificent construction to believers to remain a mosque until the Day of Resurrection.’
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