Hagia Sophia is a Late Antique place of worship in Istanbul. Built in 537 as the patriarchal cathedral of the imperial capital of Constantinople. In 1453, after the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, it was converted into a mosque. In 1935 the secular Turkish Republic established it as a museum. The complex remained mosque until 1931, when it was closed to the public for four years.
About Hagia Sophia in brief
Hagia Sophia is a Late Antique place of worship in Istanbul. Built in 537 as the patriarchal cathedral of the imperial capital of Constantinople. It was the largest Christian church of the eastern Roman Empire and the Eastern Orthodox Church. In 1453, after the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, it was converted into a mosque. In 1935 the secular Turkish Republic established it as a museum. The complex remained mosque until 1931, when it was closed to the public for four years. In early July 2020, the Council of State annulled the decision to establish the museum’s status, and a subsequent decree ordered the reclassification of Hagia Sophia as a mosque by the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The mosque was re-opened in 1935. According to Turkey’s most visited tourist attraction in 2015 and 2019 and 2019, it is expected to be the most visited site in the country by tourists in both 2014 and 2015. It is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and is said to have \”changed the history of architecture\”. The building was designed by the Greek geometers Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles. The church was dedicated to the Holy Wisdom, the second person of the Trinity. Its patronal feast falls on 25 December, the commemoration of the incarnation of the Logos in Christ. The building witnessed the excommunication of Patriarch Michael I Cerularius officially delivered by Humbert of Silva Candida, the papal envoy of Pope Leo IX in 1054, an act that is commonly considered the start of the East–West Schism.
The doge of Venice who led the Fourth Crusade and the 1204 Sack of Constantinople, Enrico Dandolo, was buried in the church. The present Justinianic building was the third Church of the same name to occupy the site, the prior one having been destroyed in the Nika riots. It has been described as \”holding a unique position in the Christian world\”, and architectural and cultural icon of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox civilization. From its initial conversion until the construction in 1616 of the nearby Sultan Ahmed Mosque, aka the Blue Mosque,. it was the principal mosque of Istanbul. It remained a public museum until it was reopened as a Mosque in 1935, when the secular Republic of Turkey established the museum. It remains the most popular museum in Turkey, with more than 1.5 million visitors a year. The museum is open to the general public and is open daily from 9am to 5pm. It also offers guided tours of the museum, including a guided tour of the interior of the mosque. It can be reached by phone on 08457 90 90 90, or by clicking here for details on how to get to the museum from the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C. or the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism in the United States. For confidential support, call the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255 or visit http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/.
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This page is based on the article Hagia Sophia published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 09, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
