Erdogan declares Hagia Sophia as mosque
ISTANBUL: President Tayyip Erdogan declared Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia open to Muslim prayer as a mosque on Friday ater a top court ruled that the building’s conversion to a museum by modern Turkey’s founding statesman was illegal.
Erdogan made his announcement just an hour ater the court ruling was revealed, brushing aside international warnings not to change the status of the nearly 1,500-year-old monument that is revered by Christians and Muslims alike.
The United States and church leaders were among those to express concern about changing the status of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, a focal point of both the Christian Byzantine and Muslim Otoman empires and now one of the most visited monuments in Turkey.
Greece’scultureministrydescribedthecourtdecision as an “open provocation” to the civilized world.
But Erdogan has long proposed restoring the mosque status of the huge sixth-century building, which was converted into a museum in the early days of the modern secular Turkish state under Mustafa Kemah Ataturk.
“The decision was taken to hand over the management of the Ayasofya Mosque to the Religious Affairs Directorate and open it for worship,” the decision signed by Erdogan said.
The Council of State, Turkey’s top administrative court, said in its ruling: “It was concluded that the setlement deed allocated it as a mosque and its use outside this character is not possible legally.
“The cabinet decision in 1934 that ended its use as a mosque and defined it as a museum did not comply with laws,” it said, referring to an edict signed by Ataturk. The association which brought the court case, the latest in a 16-year legal batle, said Hagia Sophia was the property of the Otoman leader who captured the city in 1453 and turned the already 900-year-old Greek Orthodox cathedral into a mosque.
Erdogan was due to speak shortly before 9pm (1800 GMT), his head of communications said.
In parliament in Ankara, AK Party members
stood and applauded ater Erdogan’s decree was read aloud. The Russian Orthodox Church said it regreted that the court did not take its concerns into account when making its ruling and said the decision could lead to even greater divisions, the TASS news agency reported.
Previously, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual head of some 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide and based in Istanbul, said converting it into a mosque would disappoint Christians and would “fracture” East and West.