Turkish Islamists Target Historic Hagia Sophia Church
4th June 2015
Ironically, as the PR campaigners put out posters telling the world that Turkey was “Home of Christianity,” crowds of Islamic religious “imam school” graduates gathered in Istanbul and issued a press statement demanding that the historic Hagia Sophia Church function as a mosque:
The Hagia Sophia, for us, is not just a prayer house; it symbolizes, together with the Conqueror’s (Sultan Mehmed II) heritage, our independence… Without it being opened to (Muslims) prayers, there is no way we, the Turkish nation, can be fully independent.
The story of Hagia Sophia is a sad one. Its Christian builders could never imagine that the country that would host it centuries later would never feel “independent” unless it was converted into a mosque.