Visit the Hagia Sophia

The Turkish Byzantine cathedral and Christian church, Hagia Sophia sometimes known as Aya Sofya, in Istanbul is the latest in a line of places of worship to be built on the site. Constantine the Great planned the construction of the church of the Divine Wisdom; it was actually built by his son, between the years 337-361 A.D. The words Hagia Sophia, actually mean sacred wisdom.

Unfortunately, only forty years later the church was destroyed in a mysterious fire that engulfed the building. Emperor Theodosius set about constructing a second church on the site which was eventually completed in AD 415; this church was also burnt to the ground during an uprising in AD 532

Construction of a third church began that same year and was completed in only five years by Emperor Justinian, twenty years later in 558AD an earthquake seriously damaged the building, and it had to again, be rebuilt.

This was easily the largest church in the Christian world at that time; it was constructed and decorated with only the very finest of materials. And is reputed to have been the home of some of Christianities greatest relics. that are said to have included table used for the Last Supper, Jesus' swaddling clothes and the True Cross.

Large sections of the magnificent original building’s Byzantine furnishings, were systematically destroyed by the Christian Crusaders during June 1204

Various restoration and improvement projects were undertaken on the church over the following one thousand years. Then on May 29TH in 1453 Sultan Mehmet ‘The Conqueror’ led his victorious Muslim army into Istanbul. That Friday he personally held prayers at the church and decreed that it should be converted into a mosque.

Over the following three hundred years, four massive minarets were added on to the building. The first was the south-eastern tower which was built by Sultan Mehmet II. In 1847, Gaspar Fossatio, a Christian Swiss architect, was commissioned by Sultan Abdulmecit to perform large scale restoration work to the building.

The building remained in use as a mosque for nearly five hundred years until 1934, when Hagia Sophia was declared to be a museum and a Turkish national monument.

Hagia Sophia is world renowned as one of the finest pieces of Byzantine architecture still in existence. Its huge dome is over thirty meters in diameter and towers a very majestic, sixty meters above the heads of enthralled visitors to this building that many consider the be the most beautiful in the world, and is also widely renowned to be an architectural masterpiece.

It is not important to have an interest in the Christian or Muslim faiths or even in Byzantine architecture to be able to appreciate the grandeur and magnificence of this stunning building. That has withstood not only natural and man made disasters, but also the ravages of war and insurrection. To be built and re-built as a testament to the faith of those who never stopped keeping the building alive for well over one thousand five hundred years.