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For 1,000 years the massive Hagia Sophia was the largest church in the world and people thought the dome was held up by a miracle of God. But after 1,000 years as a church, the Muslims conquered it, painted over the gorgeous mosaics and defaced all the Christian symbols. They turned it into a mosque.
After the national hero Ataturk (now discarded by the Muslim resurgence) the church was changed from a mosque to a museum. It was the No. 1 tourist attraction in Turkey. On our pilgrimages, we could imagine and sense its former glory as a church. But now Erdogan has turned it back into a functioning mosque.
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Imagine if Christians took a huge iconic mosque and turned it into a church. The international outrage would be deafening. Why the silence here? How sad.
I am happy that Pope Francis and UNESCO have spoken out against this ill-advised and disastrous decision. You can read about that here was a short history of the Hagia Sophia here.
If you want you to understand what happened in Turkey read my article “Prepare for the Skyline of the Future” which is a warning to the West. Constantinople, renamed Istanbul, was the capital of the Byzantine Christian Empire. It was all Christian and the Hagia Sophia was its cathedral. but now Turkey is 99.9% Muslim with less than 60,000 Christians in a country exceeding 80 million people.
If you don’t think this can happen to the West, think again.