GREEK INDEPENDENT PRESS
By George Gilson
May 15, 2014
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s intentions of turning Hagia Sophia into a mosque has stirred the opposition of the German leadership, but also worldwide
German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed consternation over Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s plans to convert the famed church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul from a museum into a mosque, according to a report by Deutsche Welle.
The chancellor reportedly expressed her opposition during talks with Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomeos, the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians world wide, who was on an official trip to Germany.
The visit came a little over a week before crucial European Parliament elections in Germany, which has a Greek community of nearly 400,000, all of whom are under the spiritual jurisdiction of the ecumenical patriarchate.
Built by Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the 6th century, Hagia Sophia was the cathedral of the patriarchs of Constantinople until the city’s conquest by the Ottomans, in 1453, who converted it into a mosque, which it remained for almost five centuries.
Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish republic, turned the church into a museum in 1935.
Vartholomeos has repeatedly expressed his opposition to transforming the current museum into a mosque, as have Christian leaders in Greece and elsewhere.
ArchitectGuy on Israel 