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Syrian Regime Emphasizes Its Protection of Christians By Building Miniature Hagia Sophia

Aug 1, 2020 10:00 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

The story is here:

The Syrian regime under President Bashar Al-Assad has announced that it will build a miniature replica of the Hagia Sophia, in opposition to the Turkish government’s reversion of the building from a museum into a mosque.

“The construction of this mini Hagia Sophia, taking place in the central province of Hama, will be assisted by Syria’s prominent ally Russia and will reportedly show the importance of “peaceful dialogue” between the major faiths.

This construction is a way to emphasize the Syrian regime’s protection of its Christians, which has not always been understood in the Western world, hellbent as the media is in presenting Assad in the worst possible light. The Assad regime, under both father and son, has always shut down the Syrian government on Christmas, and also allows Christians to publicly observe Good Friday, neither of which is allowed in any other Muslim-majority country.

According to the Lebanon-based news outlet Al-Modon, the idea for the building was initiated by a man named Nabeul Al-Abdullah, the head of a pro-regime loyalist militia within the province. After gaining the approval of the metropolitan bishop of the Greek Orthodox church in Hama, Nicolos Baalbaki, the plans were then presented to the Russian military within Syria.

The replica is to be built specifically in the Greek Orthodox-majority city of Al-Suqaylabiyah, on a piece of land donated by the militia leader Al-Abdullah; a Russian team within Latakia’s Hmeimim military base is reportedly already working on plans for the construction.

Nabeul Al-Abdullah heads a militia loyal to the regime, a Muslim who wants to involve the Russians in his project as a way to secure his own future – possibly in Russia itself — should the Assad regime ultimately suffer defeat.

According to the Arabic-language newspaper Rai Al-Youm, Russian lawmaker Vitaly Milonov stated that Syria is the ideal location for the mini Hagia Sophia replica because “unlike Turkey, it is a country that clearly shows the possibility of peaceful and positive interfaith dialogue.”

While politically the Assad regime admits of no compromises, no “peaceful and positive” dialogue whatever with its enemies, as confirmed by its behavior during the last nine years of a ferocious civil war, in religious matters it does indeed stand, if not for a “positive interfaith dialogue”(there have been no signs of that) at least for the state’s protection of the large Christian population in Syria.

The original Hagia Sophia, based in the city of Istanbul, was reverted back into the status of a mosque after the Turkish government overturned a 1934 ruling which made it into a museum. The historic building, which was initially built as a cathedral by the Byzantine Empire before being made into a mosque following the Ottoman conquest, has long been disputed over and many of those opposed to Turkey’s decision argue that it should have been kept as a museum or turned back into a church.

Following the first Friday prayers held in the building after 86 years last week, countries such as Greece condemned the move and religious figures in Russia and the Catholic Pope in Rome expressed their disappointment.

Syria’s aim to build a replica of the historic building is seen to serve as a gesture of revenge against Turkey, against whom it is fighting in the ongoing Syrian civil war. It is also a symbolic gesture by the Assad regime towards the Syrian Christian community, which it has posed as being a protector of, despite having targeted churches and persecuting Syrian Christians during the civil war.

Turkey’s troops, originally sent to Syria by Erdogan in order to push back the Kurdish YPG forces from the Turkish border, will now remain, the Turkish President has said, “until Syria is free,” by which he clearly meant “free from Assad’s rule.” Since Assad now controls 70% of Syria, those Turkish fighters will be there for a very long time to come.

Moscow’s support and assistance towards the project, according to opposition activists who spoke to Al-Modon, is a method of justifying its military presence within Syria and its backing of Al-Assad based on Russian ties to the Syrian Christian community. The activists also said that the militia leader Al-Abdullah, who donated the land for the construction, aims to strengthen his ties with Russia in case the Assad regime were to fall.

Russian participation in the project allows Moscow to present itself as a defender of the Christians in a Muslim sea, much as Russia did in the late nineteenth century, during the Ottoman period, in supporting the South Slavs in Serbia and Bulgaria in their struggles against their Turkish rulers.

By taking part in this project, Putin wins favor among the 300-million strong Orthodox community world-wide, and especially, gains support from the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow and his flock of 90 million, a clear political plus for Putin at home, where he may even more convincingly play his role – despite his own atheism — as the Defender of Russian Orthodoxy.

The small-scale replica of the Hagia Sophia to be built at the Greek-Orthodox majority town of Al-Suqaylabiyah will, one hopes, be as true as possible to the original structure, ideally during the pre-Islamic period of its existence, and thus shorn of minarets. But artists who can produce anything like the Byzantine mosaics that adorn the walls of the real Hagia Sophia do not any longer exist. Would it be better to have some modern mosaics, which would only invite invidious comparison with those on the walls of the original Hagia Sophia, or none at all? Many questions remain.

Meanwhile, this small-scale version of Hagia Sophia in the middle of Syria will continue to remind the world’s Christians of what, thanks to Erdogan, they have lost, though there is little danger of their forgetting. The Syrians think Erdogan will not be pleased. I think they’re right.

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Filed Under: Featured, Hugh Fitzgerald, Russia, Syria Tagged With: Bashar al-Assad, Hagia Sophia, Vladimir Putin


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Comments

  1. Buraq says

    Aug 1, 2020 at 10:06 am

    The Cathedral should be rebuilt exactly as the original, brick for brick! There should be exact replicas built all over the world!

    • Ray Jarman says

      Aug 1, 2020 at 12:30 pm

      +1

      • Ash says

        Aug 2, 2020 at 8:48 am

        Yes
        All over the world
        So they will serve as slaps on Erdogan shameless, hate-filled face.

  2. Rbla says

    Aug 1, 2020 at 11:59 am

    Erdolph had better watch himself and remember that Greece has a big Orthodox brother called Russia.

    There is a full scale replica of the Parthenon in Nashville Tenn. Perhaps we should have a full scale replica of Hagia Sophia built in America. A little friendly competition with Russia.

    • barbaracvm1 says

      Aug 1, 2020 at 1:09 pm

      Not competition, reinforcement of religious freedom for all.

  3. Jan Favre says

    Aug 1, 2020 at 12:10 pm

    Putin is officially Orthodox and not atheist.

  4. John says

    Aug 1, 2020 at 12:41 pm

    From what I have read, Putin is not an atheist. He wears a cross. He was baptized Russian Orthodox.

    • Daniel Triplett says

      Aug 1, 2020 at 3:41 pm

      Here’s a pretty good article describing Putin’s religious views:

      https://hollowverse.com/vladimir-putin/

    • CogitoErgoSum says

      Aug 1, 2020 at 3:41 pm

      Yes, I do not believe that Putin is an atheist and neither do I believe that Assad is a Muslim. If anything, I believe it is Assad who is the atheist.

      • gravenimage says

        Aug 1, 2020 at 6:15 pm

        Technically, Assad is Alawite, But I have no idea what his personal views are.

        Putin has certainly gotten a lot of mileage in recent years out of being Orthodox–not sure if it goes farther than this with him or not.

  5. Ray Jarman says

    Aug 1, 2020 at 12:51 pm

    Once again, before President Hussein and his fool for a Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton, not pushed the Sunnis in Homs into internecine, thousands of deaths and the destruction of Europe by those who started the war in Syria would not have occurred. Assad is far from being a hero but he and his father before him did protect Christians and even Jews in Syria. I mentioned before that at the souk in Damascus, Christians and Muslims built their small businesses side by side and appeared to be friendly to one another. Even Jews owned shops there. When I visited Aleppo in the late 1990s, there seemed to be no religious or ethnic strife there either and remember that the Syrian government encourage tourists to visit Palmira. Now, thanks to the afore mentioned, all the good was destroyed.

    After the Hussein/Clinton fiasco, why should any in the Middle East trust the Americans?

    • gravenimage says

      Aug 1, 2020 at 6:16 pm

      Obama and Clinton certainly made things worse, but Sunni Jihad had been surging for some decades before they came on stage. They did not create Jihad.

  6. owensgate says

    Aug 1, 2020 at 3:25 pm

    A “mini-Hagia”? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard all week, and “dumb things” are outdoing themselves for attention. Will they have “mini-Christians” to pray there? Or should I call them “Dimmi-Christians”? I imagine the Byzantine Artwork has already been scraped from the walls and ceiling, and Arabic b/s scribbled all over it.

  7. Keith O says

    Aug 1, 2020 at 4:52 pm

    A replica of the Haiga Sophia is just another building called a church.
    It is NOT THE Haiga Sophia.
    A modern copy is not the original and doesn’t have the history, nor the emotional energy behind it. Just a sad modern copy that is a sad modern attempt to stop an old enemy.

    • gravenimage says

      Aug 1, 2020 at 6:17 pm

      It is certainly not the same.

    • James Lincoln says

      Aug 1, 2020 at 9:18 pm

      Keith O,

      Like trying to make a copy of Michelangelo’s Pietà…

      • Keith O says

        Aug 2, 2020 at 7:52 am

        James, I had to do a search as I’m not much on classical artworks, but yeah, pretty good analogy. Beautiful piece by the way.

        • James Lincoln says

          Aug 2, 2020 at 10:25 am

          Keith O,

          I had the good fortune of seeing Michelangelo’s Pietà as a youngster at the Vatican Pavilion of the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.

          We went in multiple times. I remember my father remarking on the detailed surface anatomy of the statue.

          He was a physician – and devout Catholic…

  8. gravenimage says

    Aug 1, 2020 at 6:18 pm

    Syrian Regime Emphasizes Its Protection of Christians By Building Miniature Hagia Sophia
    ……………………

    Just how miniature is this going to be? This could still be grand, or it might be nothing more than an impressive model…

    • Ramez says

      Aug 1, 2020 at 6:27 pm

      +1

    • tony says

      Aug 1, 2020 at 8:47 pm

      Fact is that thanks to Assad, Hezbollah and Putin, the cancerous isis is destroyed..Assad, Hezbollah and Putin did million times more in fight against sunni pigs than any western leader did.

      • gravenimage says

        Aug 1, 2020 at 9:01 pm

        Actually, it was the United States that did more to destroy the Islamic State territorially than any other actor.

        And Hezb’allah is fine with a savage Caliphate–they just want to run it themselves rather than have the hated Sunnis do it. Tony must realize that Hezb’allah has essentially destroyed Christian Lebanon–or does he just not care? Is he pretending that this name doesn’t mean “Party of Allah”?

        • Wellington says

          Aug 2, 2020 at 11:50 am

          Seconded.

        • anton says

          Aug 2, 2020 at 6:09 pm

          Hezbollah is not the same as sunni wahhabi pigs, Hezbollah is fighting hard against them everywhere they are…Hezbollah even cooperates with Lebanese Christians, they where the ones who protected christian churches…Do you know whom the sunni jihadis hate the most? Not Christians, not Jews, not Zionists, but Shias. And Shias were the ones who suffered the most under isis…

        • gravenimage says

          Aug 2, 2020 at 6:39 pm

          anton wrote:

          Hezbollah is not the same as sunni wahhabi pigs, Hezbollah is fighting hard against them everywhere they are…Hezbollah even cooperates with Lebanese Christians, they where the ones who protected christian churches…Do you know whom the sunni jihadis hate the most? Not Christians, not Jews, not Zionists, but Shias. And Shias were the ones who suffered the most under isis…
          ………………….

          Sunnis and Shia may hate each other, but their ideology is just the same in every essential way, and they both oppress Christians and other Infidels.

          The idea that destroying Christian Lebanon constitutes “cooperating” with Lebanese Christians is grotesque.

          And Muslims hating other Muslims *does not* somehow make Islam better in some way, rather the opposite, in fact.

          Right now, because Shia are outnumbered by Sunnis, Shi’ites are not in a position to target Christians as widely. Pretending this means that Shia Islam is not murderous towards Christians is absurd, though.

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