Pope ‘deeply pained’ by change to Istanbul site
Pope Francis said he was “deeply pained” by Turkey’s decision to change the status of the Hagia Sophia from a museum to a mosque.
In a very brief, improvised remark yesterday, the pontiff, who was speaking from his studio window overlooking St Peter’s Square, said the Catholic Church was observing the International Day of the Sea.
“And the sea brings me a little far away with my thought: to Istanbul. I am thinking of St Sophia and I am deeply pained,” he said.
Pope Francis said no more but his comment was clearly a reference to the move by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week to formally convert the Istanbul landmark back into a mosque.
The site was built as an Orthodox Christian church between 532 and 537 AD under emperor Justinian I and is considered to be the most important Byzantine structure.
After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, now Istanbul, in 1453, the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque.
It was opened as a museum in 1935 after the secular modern Turkish republic was established in 1923.
The site was added to the list of Unesco World Heritage sites in 1985.
Last Friday, the Council of State, Turkey’s highest administrative court, unanimously cancelled a 1934 Cabinet decision to make the site a museum and said it was registered as a mosque in its property deeds.
Hagia Sophia was the principal tourist attraction in Turkey, hosting millions of tourists every year.
About 3.8 million people visited the building last year alone.
The pope’s remarks added to strong objections made by the World Council of Churches a day earlier that called on Mr Erdogan to reconsider the decision.
Officials from the US, France, Russia and Greece also said they had concerns about the Turkish court’s ruling that allowed the site to be converted back into a mosque.