Turkey opens revered Hagia Sophia mosque to prayers

ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sealed his long-stated desire to restore the historic Hagia Sophia as a working mosque Friday, opening the magnificent Byzantine structure built in the sixth century as the world’s largest cathedral to thousands of Muslim worshippers for the first time in nearly nine decades.

Huge crowds began gathering even in the predawn hours around Hagia Sophia to attend Friday prayer, a crowning moment for Erdogan after 18 years at the helm of Turkish politics. Under heavy police security, worshippers settled on the streets and sidewalks on their rugs, covering their faces with masks against the coronavirus and their heads with makeshift shades as the sun grew searingly hot. Every cobbled street around the mosque was packed, as well as the open spaces along the length of the ancient hippodrome where Roman chariots once raced.

Erdogan arrived at noon, wearing a mask, and sat on the mosque floor, head bowed and eyes closed, listening to the melodic recitation of the Quran, which was carried live on national television. At 1 p.m., the crowd fell silent and knelt in unison as the head mufti, his hands clasped on the hilt of the sword of conquest, gave his sermon. “This is a festival for us today. We are so happy,” said Selahattin Yigiter, a retired businessman who was sitting with his wife on a prayer mat on the sidewalk below the nearly 1,500-year-old building. “With the pressure of Muslim people it is reconverted.”

But the atmosphere of celebration among the Muslim faithful in Turkey contrasted with the angst and dismay Erdogan’s decision has generated among

Christians around the world and among many in academic and conservation communities.

Built in the sixth century by a Byzantine emperor, Justinian I, Hagia Sophia was for nearly 1,000 years the largest church in the world and the center of Christendom. In 1453, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople and converted the majestic building into a mosque: It became one of Islam’s holiest sites.

Under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the modern Turkish republic, Hagia Sophia was turned into a museum, and all religious services ended. For the past 86 years, it has stood as a monument to the competing empires and religions whose histories had melded, sometimes awkwardly, at the World Heritage Site. Just hours before the event, the government announced that the entire World Heritage Site, which encompasses several nearby historic buildings, would be closed for ordinary business for 24 hours, bemusing some international tourists caught unawares.

But Hagia Sophia would stay open all night through to Saturday morning to allow the faithful the chance to pray inside the mosque, Ali Yerlikaya, the governor of Istanbul, said in a televised news briefing on the eve of the event.

Many in Turkey see the move as pure political theater, part of Erdogan’s effort to buoy his political standing, which has wobbled after nearly two decades atop Turkish politics and as the pandemic further set back an already shaky economy.

There was no doubt that Erdogan and many conservative Muslims and Turkish nationalists were thrilled by the decision. Muzaffer Demir, a hotel manager who had traveled from the capital, Ankara, with his wife and 13-year-old daughter to be present, described his emotions at the occasion as “excitement, happiness and tears.”

Erdogan visited Hagia Sophia twice to oversee preparations, posing for photos, the second time on Thursday evening with his wife, Emine, in front of white drapery that has been suspended in the apse to conceal one of the famous mosaics, depicting the virgin and child.

But as the decision has become reality and work has gone apace to prepare for a grand reopening ceremony, including the covering of the marble floor and the figurative medieval mosaics, dismay has rippled across cultural and academic circles around the globe.

In one of the strongest protests, the Italian Association for Byzantine Studies, headed by Antonio Rigo at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, warned that turning Hagia Sophia into a working mosque in today’s Turkey would mean confining the monument to abuse and suffocation.