A US-based Orthodox Christian group on Monday criticised Turkey’s handling of the anniversary of the 2020 conversion of the 6th Century Hagia Sophia church in Istanbul into an active mosque.
The Archons group, made up of people honored by the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for service to the church, accused the Turkish presidency of “a deliberate erasure of the historical record” on Friday through the anniversary program by making no mention of the building’s Christian identity and linking it with the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul.
The group said in a statement: “A UNESCO World Heritage Site of unparalleled significance to thirteen centuries of Christian history should not be repeatedly and publicly recast, in state-sponsored programming, as a monument to religious conquest with no room in the narrative for the faith community that built it and worshipped there for nine hundred years before 1453,” when Istanbul fell to the Ottoman Turks.
“Language describing the reconversion as fulfilling a national ‘right’ on par with the flag and the borders [of Turkey] treats an act of religious dispossession as an inseparable feature of Turkish sovereignty itself,” the statement added.
