Hagia Sophia

The US State Department reacted to the provocative move by Turkish authorities to allow and support the reading of the Quran in the UNESCO designated site of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul during a press briefing, Thursday.

Greece has appealed to UNESCO to intervene after Muslim prayers were read at Hagia Sophia in Istanbul on Wednesday, provoking the religious sentiments of Christians around the world.

The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the following announcement regarding the attempt by Turkey to turn Hagia Sophia into a Mosque:

We condemn the Koran reading and holding of prayers in Hagia Sophia, which was attended by the head of Turkey’s Directorate for Religious Affairs and broadcast by Turkey’s state television channel

The Greek government has appealed to UNESCO to intervene after Muslim prayers were read at Hagia Sophia in Istanbul on Wednesday, calling it an affront to the religious sentiments of Christians around the world.

The Greek Foreign Ministry on Thursday issued a statement condemning the holding of Muslim prayers at Hagia Sophia in Istanbul on Wednesday night that was broadcast on television and attended by government officials.

Turkey today might be doing its best to pave over Istanbul in concrete, but the city continues to resist, maintaining its status as the most beautiful in the world, said prominent travel writer and guide Saffet Emre Tonguç.

It is the middle of May, almost two weeks before the end of the month, and high on the agenda came, once again, the issue of the Hagia Sophia. 

A large group of people, who demand Istanbul's monumental Hagia Sophia to be turned into a mosque again, gathered in front of the museum in the early hours of May 13, before offering their morning prayer there. 

Just a day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan bragged about the defeat of the Greeks by the Turkish army in 1923 in Asia Minor, a book authored by a pro-Erdogan historian and claiming the transformation of the Orthodox Christian Cathedral Hagia Sofia into a museum in 1935 was the result of American diplomats to prevent the historic Church from being turned into a Mosque and did not ta

The Hagia Sophia Mosque, which was opened to worship in 2013 after serving as a museum for 52 years, will be restored in the Black Sea province of Trabzon, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.