Turkiye reopens ancient church with prized mosaics to Muslim worship
Turkiye has opened the ancient Chora church, one of Istanbul’s most celebrated Byzantine buildings, to Muslim worshippers after it was used as a museum for more than 70 years, making it the second such major conversion under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan turned Istanbul’s worldrenowned Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque in 2020 in a ceremony attended by tens of thousands of people.
That move was criticized by church leaders and some Western countries, who said reconverting Hagia Sophia risked deepening religious rifts. Erdogan said this was interference in sovereign rights.
The original Chora, or Kariye, church dates back to the 4th Century and was turned into a mosque by the Ottomans. It became a museum in 1945, and Erdogan signed an order in 2020 to convert it back into a mosque. It reopened on Monday after restoration.
The outer halls were preserved as a museum, and visitors could view the prized mosaics that dot the ceiling unhindered.
In line with religious traditions, curtains concealed the mosaics in the building’s prayer section.
Ferdy Simon, a British tourist, said he would have preferred the building to remain a museum so that people could see the mosaics and frescoes.
“It seems to be a political gambit,” he said, speaking outside the Chora. “It’s a bit of a shame when you see devout women who have come here to pray, and they are told they cannot go into the main narthex area,” he added, referring to the fact that the main prayer section is reserved for males, as in all mosques.
Ugur Gokgoz, a Turkish man who came to pray, said it was the Turkish people’s right to use the Chora as a mosque and that the artifacts inside the museum were preserved. “There was a small section reserved for prayer. In the end, they did not tear everything down and turned it into a mosque,” he said. A church was first built at the site in the 4th century, but most of the existing building dates to an 11th century church that was partly rebuilt 200 years later following an earthquake.
The Church of the Holy Savior in Chora, built near the ancient city walls of Constantinople, contains 14th-century mosaics and frescoes depicting scenes from biblical stories.
They were plastered over after the Ottomans conquered the city in 1453 but brought to light when — like Hagia Sophia — it was converted to a museum by Turkiye’s secular republic in 1945.
Burcin Altinsay Ozguner, Turkiye head of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, said the Chora artifacts are unique, and the best way to make them available for researchers is to maintain the building as a museum.