Hagia Sophia should be open to Christian use

sir – With a battle over the ownership of the mosque-cathedral of Cordoba (report, June 25), might not the Turks return Hagia Sophia in Istanbul to the Christian Church?

From its Roman, Greek Orthodox history, it should be a Christian place of worship.

After all, it was the Turks who in 1935 closed it as a mosque and converted it into a museum. It still has the form of a Christian basilica, even though Christians are not able to worship there.

Richard Bateman

Walsall, Staffordshire

John the Baptist in a detail from a 13th-century mosaic in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul