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This is a pipe dream, but then again...the Hagia Sophia as an Islamized museum stands as the foremost monument to dhimmitude and the appropriation of the conquered peoples' culture and history by Islam. If Turkey is really serious about adopting European values as a prelude to EU membership, let the Turks make this gesture of recognition of the equality of dignity of people of all religions.
Of course, they do not need to do this, because the Europeans will most likely let them into the EU without calling them to account in any effective way.
From the Hagia Sophia blog, with thanks to Sparta:
If you believe in the just case that Hagia Sophia should be restored to its proper religious role as a church, for which it was built in the first place, then we ask you to support our petition to the EU Parliament that Turkey should not be admitted as a member of the European Community until it restores Hagia Sophia to its original purpose as a church and not a museum.We need a minimum of 1.000.000 signatures in order to force the European Union to consider this proposal seriously and debate it immediately as one of the conditions to allow Turkey to be admitted as a new member of the EU.
As you know, Turkey is doing everything it can today to convince the European Union that it is a worthy country to join it. If you agree with us that Turkey should not be admitted to the EU before restoring justice to Hagia Sophia, please click on "Your Signature" and send us your message.
We would be grateful if you could also tell your friends about this site and its purpose.
Angeliki Papagika and partners
Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia is not a public building that changed ownership with the conquest of a war. Hagia Sophia is a place of God, Christendom’s grandest place of worship for over 900 years, and arguably the most perfect and beautiful church that has been erected by any Christian people. The splendour of its overall effect, its “paradise-like” beauty and architectural brilliance were often comprehensible only in terms of repeated divine intervention.
The magnificence, spirituality and prestige of the Great Church led to its being appropriated as an imperial and religious symbol by the Ottoman sultans. The church of Christ was possessed and converted into a mosque, until it was decreed a museum. During this long time, it has been subjected to more than its fair share of abuse and denigration.
Hagia Sophia, an essential element of Christianity, a second Jerusalem, the most revolutionary and daring church conceived in Christendom, has been turned into a museum considerably impaired by the loss of all its Christian furnishings and much of its original setting and atmosphere. At present it is part of an increasingly elaborate area of monuments, museums, and rug and souvenir shops. The Great Church, transformed into a monument/museum without life…The conquest of war does not and cannot change its spiritual nature into a civil-cultural-secular institution. For as long as the injustice done to the soul of Hagia Sophia is ignored and forgotten Christianity cannot be whole. Hagia Sophia’s reason for existing is vitally important to restoring religious integrity.
It is a disgrace and disrespect to a religion and god when holy places are unwillingly turned purely into tourist attractions. How would the Muslims feel if one of their holiest places was turned into a museum for tourists by a conquering power?
With its conversion into a museum in 1934, Hagia Sophia was frozen in some past age, vaguely Byzantine. Directed by the then historicist paradigm that saw the past as unchanging, Hagia Sophia was also understood through the aesthetic of the great museum, that is, aloof and imposing. Both traits were useful to a Turkish government that wanted to break with the Ottoman era that lasted until after World War I. The church of Heavenly Wisdom became thus what the official Turkish act of secularisation called a “unique architectural monument of art” and hence was valued more for its age, art and historical value than for its practical and religious use.
Posted by Robert at August 8, 2005 5:19 PM
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A few years ago, a naive visitor, I was invited to dinner in Istanbul by those who might once have been called "Ottomans" in contradistinction to "Turks." These secularist Turks had studied or sent their children to study in the West, greatly disliked all signs of resurgent Islam, were acidulous on the subject of how Muslim women would stand in line at the American consulate or embassy to obtain visas, carefully removing their hijabs, and putting on earrings and lipstick just before entering the premises, and once they had made their pitch, or filled out the right forms, upon existing removed those earrings, wiped off that lipstick, put back that hijab.
Yet in my innocence I asked why the Hagia Sophia could not be made again into a church. They looked at me as if I simply had not understood, could not understand, Turkish reality. What seemed to me (and some other Western guests) a perfectly reasonable thing to do, struck them as a fantastic request. "If we did that," the most vocal among the Turkish hosts replied, "we would have a revolution on our hands."
I began to understand that even in "secular" Turkey, Kemalist Turkey, the Turkey for which Bernard Lewis had offered such a stout defense (even Lewis's indulgent attitude toward the nonsensical racist mythology of the "Sun-People" theories of Turkish nationalists, which Lewis described as a useful substitute for islam), the Turkey for which several figures recently prominent in the Administration once worked as registered foreign agents, was not the Turkey that Westerners imagine. It remained deeply Muslim, and one has only to turn to the astonishing apologetics of Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (google his name, and "Jihadwatch" for more), a prominent historian of Ottoman science, and now the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Countries, to see that the standards one normally applies cannot be applied in the case of many prominent Turksih academics. Filial piety, loyalty to Islam, simply clouds the mind and leads to the uttering, and belief in, all sorts of nonsense.
No, the Hagia Sophia will not be turned into a church. And if it were, it would only be in order to win points from the Infidels that could be traded in for economic gain, and would not reflect any kind of spontaneous impulse to do right by the non-Muslims of what was once Byzantium, and has been steadily islamized ever since, perhaps never so bloodily and cruelly since the early centuries of Seljuk and Ottoman conquest as in the 20th century.
See Vahakn Dadrian on the Armenian genocide, see Speros Vryonis ("The Mechanics of Destruction" or his polemic against Sanford Shaw).
Posted by: Hugh![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 8, 2005 6:11 PM
This nonsense is distracting attention from a far more urgent problem. Turkish politics are slowly destroying the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the most senior among Orthodox leaders, which is both spiteful in itself and damaging as denying the Orthodox family of churches a central figure. Why not ask for something serious such as the restoration of the illegally confiscated Khalki seminary?
Posted by: Paolo at August 8, 2005 6:25 PM
It is a blasphemy for islam to occupy this church. How very like islam to steal the church and like a cowbird lays it's eggs in another bird's nest, islam claims what others built.
Posted by: Carolyn2 at August 8, 2005 6:42 PM
Saint Sophia. At the least - get english speakers to stop using the Turkish name (ayasofya camii -which they use in full -meaning "mosque of great wisdom") - and have the minarets removed. But what can be expected of the so-called "tolerance for other religions...". BTW: the "Blue Mosque" across the street from Saint Sophia (and very similar in design) was designed by a Christian slave for sultan (Why? well figure it out).
Posted by: PCKills! at August 8, 2005 6:51 PM
I signed time ago, Itīs a dream but itīs beautiful to dream sometimes. I donīt want that Turkey come in Europe, the religious freedom is a debt for everybody not only for Turkey.
And the orthodox seminary must be opened now like a catholics for catholics there, and protestants not to be beaten for converting or selling bibles or catholic priests jailed by baptising, itīs sad seeing this.
at August 8, 2005 7:03 PM
Re nomenclature, let's be clear:
Aya Sofya is Turkish.
Hagia Sophia is Greek.
Holy Wisdom is English.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at August 8, 2005 7:04 PM
Can we just give European Turkey to the Russians and call it a day?
Posted by: counterjihadi at August 8, 2005 7:18 PM
Thank you sincerely Mr. Spencer.
(just going by what was heard in Turkey - a long time ago. The ottomans actually kept the greek enemy's term? One can not rely totally on internet search results either it seems).
Still - 'Saint Sophia' - seems best.
Posted by: PCKills! at August 8, 2005 7:47 PM
Sorry to go OT - Hugh, on your recommendation, given that you're right about many things, I've read "Christie Malry's Own Double Entry". What a gem! Right up my street.
It is now doing the rounds at my office - by strange coincidence, in Shepherd's Bush, near where Christie worked - and is putting all kinds of ideas into our heads.
Many thanks.
Back on topic - little to add really. Turkey is about as near as a Muslim country can get to being Westernised, but Islam still endures.
Posted by: Interested at August 8, 2005 7:52 PM
Interested --
Glad to help B. S. Johnson's heirs and assigns possibly receive some posthumous royalties. He was quirky, like Russell Hoban, or Cees Nooteboom, or Andrey Platonov.
Remember the title of that old song that Flannery O'Connor borrowed: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" ("You know -- you always get the other kind" with a slight rise in the singer's voice at the end. Well, that's the way it is with writers nowadays.
This office around which B. S. Johnson is now making his slow way. What kind of office? Estate agents, Strutt & Parker Country-Life stuff, selling houses and messuage to sheikhs who don't deserve more than a tent in the desert? Lawyers, the kind that hire Lavinia Greenlaw to be their Poet in Residence? What exactly? Youth wants to know.
Posted by: Hugh at August 8, 2005 8:05 PM
Re nomenclature again:
While there are saints named Sophia in the Byzantine tradition, the Great Church is not dedicated to any of them. Rather, it is dedicated to the Divine Wisdom.
It is therefore not the Cathedral of Saint Sophia, analogous to, say, a Church of Saint Katherine or Saint Irene, but the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom, analogous to a Church of the Holy Trinity.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at August 8, 2005 8:11 PM
I'll put your question in a suspense account, to be resolved at the year end.
Suspense accounts must be cleared - they cannot be carried forward to future accounting periods.
Posted by: Interested at August 8, 2005 8:15 PM
Hugh:
Remarkably astute commentary. And more than that, true.
I lived in Turkey for many year as the son of a U.S. diplomat. I loved, and still love, the city of Istanbul.
However, when one visits Hagia Sophia (or whatever one wishes to call it), the central Byzantine Christian church of its time, and one sees the large plaques in Arabic testifying to its submission as a mosque, one only cringes.
Many Turks are delightful people, but they will NEVER be part of the EU, unless something really fundamentally changes. Ataturk tried, but I'm not sure he succeeded.
No violence. No racism. No Islam.
Peace.
Posted by: Matt at August 8, 2005 8:18 PM
PCKills:
A quibble: Ayasofia is a corruption of the name Hagia Sophia. Remember, the "a"s are as in "father". In Greek, Hagia Sophia means "Holy Wisdom" or "Sacred Wisdom" (i.e., the Wisdom of God, of which much is said in Proverbs). Hence, the Turkish name for the building nonetheless preserves its original Greek name--a little like many American place names preserving what the Indians called them, even though the people now using the names have no idea what the names mean.
Posted by: Kepha at August 8, 2005 11:43 PM
i bet there gonna b nutters who'd claim that there wasnt a chruch at that spot just as they're claiming with Ram Janmabhoomi
Posted by: Vikrant_Camberleykar at August 9, 2005 5:04 AM
"How would the Muslims feel if one of their holiest places was turned into a museum for tourists by a conquering power?"
It has happened. The Great Mosque of Cordoba was turned into a cathedral and also a museum. The same happened to the Toledo Mosque. I don't think anyone wants to let Muslims turn these back into mosques (they have asked, at least about the Cordoba one), so it's probably quite natural that they don't want to let Christians turn the Hagia Sophia back into a church either.
And please, no Turkey in the EU, church or no church.
at August 9, 2005 5:20 AM
Vera:
"How would the Muslims feel if one of their holiest places was turned into a museum for tourists by a conquering power?"
Even if Mekka turned into a museum (which it should be) I don't think many of us would have any desire to go there...
Posted by: Terminator at August 9, 2005 7:31 AM
"The Great Mosque of Cordoba was turned into a cathedral and also a museum. The same happened to the Toledo Mosque."
--- from a posting above
But there is a difference. The mezquita in Cordoba (aligned not with Mecca but with Damascus) was built on top of a pre-existing Visigothic church. The spot was chosen deliberately, just as the "farthest mosque" from which Muhammad ascended into Heaven was chosen by the Umayyad Caliph so carefully to make a religio-political claim to the holiest site of Judaism, and one of the main sites of Christianity as well.
As for the mosque in Toledo, it was built in 1000, and became a church in about 1200. In other words, it was a mosque for all of 200 years, and has been a church for 800 years.
Hagia Sophia was the chief Christian structure in what was the first city of Christianity, the largest, richest, most important city, for a thousand years: Constantinople. It was a church for a thousand years, and there were plenty of Christians who remained in Constantinople (which was 50% non-Muslim in 1914) right up until this century, when the spasms of Islamic hatred had their obvious effect on the remaining Christians of Turkey, and of Istanbul.
When in 1934 or so Ataturk managed finally to turn it into a museum, one might have expected that, in time -- another 50 years or so-- those "secular" and "Kemalist" Turks would manage to take the further step of turning Hagia Sophia back into a church. But no such step has been taken. Apparently, though mosques are opening up everywhere in the Western world, and the one a mile from the Vatican was built on 7 acres donated for the purpose by the city of Rome (in the dreamy belief that perhaps, just perhpas, Christians would be treated better in such places as Saudi Arabia -- fat chance!), in Paris, in London, in Turin and Hamburg and Lyon and Marseille and Washington and New York and...
well, you get the idea.
But the first church of the city that was the first city of Christendom for a thousand years --allow it to become a church again?
For Muslims, this is out of the question.
And do not forget the "vision" of Muhammad --- that first Constantinople would fall to Islam, and then Rome. This story is frequently found on Muslim websites. It is vividly present for many Muslims. Almost no Christians are aware of it. They should begin to attempt to get inside the brains warped and stunted by Islam. Simply as an object of study, it holds some interest.
Not much, but some.
Posted by: Hugh at August 9, 2005 8:58 AM
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