Tons of of worshipers stuffed the slender streets of Istanbul's Fatih district on Friday to listen to the sounds of Friday prayers emanating from the newly inaugurated Kariye Mosque.
As soon as generally known as Chora Church, the location has spent the final 79 years as a museum. Nonetheless, it’s now the newest construction to be transformed again right into a mosque by the federal government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after the Hagia Sophia was transformed in 2020. Whereas many Turkish Muslims take into account it a triumph, the Greek Orthodox Church condemned it as a “reckless resolution” that “makes a mockery of the Turkish authorities's dedication to non secular tolerance and spiritual freedom”.
The conversion of the Chora was introduced shortly after Hagia Sophia, however its opening for prayer was delayed by years of restoration work.
The screening of the primary Friday prayers at Kariye was comparatively quiet in comparison with the Hagia Sophia, which attracted a whole bunch of 1000’s of people that stuffed the streets with prayer rugs for blocks and blocks from the constructing. In contrast, Friday's crowd was comparatively common for a mosque in considered one of Istanbul's extra religiously conservative neighborhoods, the place Friday worshipers usually take to the streets.
Chora Church and Hagia Sophia are Byzantine buildings from the 4th century. They spent nearly a millennium as Christian holy websites earlier than the Ottomans transformed them into mosques after the conquest of Constantinople within the fifteenth century. Regardless of their conversions, they remained revered by Orthodox Christians. After the institution of the secular Republic of Turkey within the early twentieth century, it was determined that each could be neither a mosque nor a church, however solely museums.
“Each Hagia Sophia and Chora embodied the Byzantine and Ottoman pasts and have become symbols of coexistence and multi-faith dwelling practices. Their conversion mainly implies a hierarchy, favoring the Islamic previous over all different layers, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Jewish, Syriac, et al,” stated Faith Information Service in e-mail Dr. Özgür Kaymak, lecturer and researcher of minority rights at Istanbul MEF College.
The rededication of locations like mosques is greater than only a change of standing. In accordance with Islamic custom, artworks of human figures are prohibited in locations of prayer, whereas in Orthodox church buildings icons of Christ, saints and different biblical figures are the defining function.
In Hagia Sophia, the mosaics of Jesus and Mary have been coated by curtains for the reason that conversion. Whereas Erdoğan promised that the Hagia Sophia would stay absolutely accessible and free to all guests, Turkey reneged on this earlier this yr, re-imposing entry charges on vacationers and transferring them to the next degree, whereas the principle flooring is reserved for Muslim worshipers solely.
Observers have additionally criticized the Turkish Directorate for Faith's dealing with of the location, noting injury that didn’t exist when it was below the Ministry of Tradition and Tourism.
Though considerably smaller than Hagia Sophia, the Chora is residence to a few of the best-preserved examples of late Byzantine artwork, together with mosaics, icons and frescoes, and is taken into account a UNESCO World Heritage Web site.
“It's an important place for us as a result of it remembers our tradition and our traditions right here,” Father Evangelos Markantonis, an Orthodox priest who led a bunch of theology college students to Chora on Friday, instructed Faith Information Service.
“Though we can’t worship as Orthodox Christians, we should attempt to discover issues on which we might be united. Solely by way of dialogue and good deeds can we proceed our lives,” stated Markantonis, who can also be a professor on the College of Athens. he requested concerning the controversy.
Erdoğan has lengthy rejected challenges to his proper to transform church buildings equivalent to Hagia Sophia and Chora, and in 2018 instructed his supporters to fill the close by Sultan Ahmet Mosque (additionally recognized in English because the Blue Mosque) earlier than speaking about the necessity to pray at Hagia Sophia.
Nonetheless, he made a U-turn in 2020.
“My expensive nation, the conquest of Istanbul and the conversion of Hagia Sophia right into a mosque are among the many most wonderful chapters in Turkish historical past,” Erdoğan stated on the time in a speech inaugurating Hagia Sophia as a mosque.
“That is essentially the most honorable day that Islam has been wanting ahead to, Greek Constantinople has change into Turkish Istanbul,” he added, quoting Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet.
“The resurrection of Hagia Sophia is a harbinger of the liberation of al-Aqsa Mosque. The resurrection of Hagia Sophia is the steps of the desire of Muslims around the globe to return out of the interregnum,” Erdoğan stated in his closing remarks.
Chora opened because the Kariye Mosque simply weeks after Erdoğan's Justice and Improvement Get together (AKP) suffered its largest electoral defeat in 20 years in Turkey's nationwide municipal elections.
“The current conversion of Chora right into a mosque might be attributed to lots of Erdoğan's issues, together with his geopolitical energy politics, his enchantment to non secular nationalism to revive his electoral recognition after the March elections, or his ways to divert consideration from Turkey's financial decline,” he added. Kaymak stated.
Many analysts attribute the loss to the bleeding AKP vote to the extra Islamist-leaning Welfare Get together, which has pressured Erdogan over his response to the Israel-Hamas warfare and the humanitarian scenario within the Gaza Strip.
Muslim worshipers on the mosque stated on Friday that they noticed its rededication as an Islamic website a nationwide victory for Turkey.
“This mosque is among the symbols of the Conquest. We’re proud and completely happy. There are very stunning frescoes inside. They have been additionally properly renovated earlier than the closure. Could it’s good for our nation and our nation,” onlooker Ahmet Öteyüzoğlu instructed Turkish media.
“Thank God for nowadays. Not everybody has the chance of their lifetime,” one other onlooker named Mehmet Çelik instructed Turkey's Anadolu Company, referring to having the ability to pray at each the rededicated Hagia Sophia and Kariye mosques.
Nonetheless, Greece, the US State Division and Orthodox Christian establishments around the globe criticized the choice to transform the constructing right into a mosque.
“I need to publicly specific my sturdy dissatisfaction, to precise the sentiments of all Greek women and men, for the fully pointless conversion of a historic Byzantine temple, the Chora Monastery, right into a mosque. I imagine that is an act that insults the wealthy historical past of Istanbul itself as a crossroads of cultures,” stated the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis shortly earlier than flying to Turkey for a deliberate assembly with Erdogan.
“We name on the Turkish authorities to protect and guarantee entry to websites and buildings which have hosted completely different spiritual communities in a approach that respects their various histories,” a overseas ministry spokesman stated in response to questions from Greek media.
“For the Turkish authorities to applicable each because the property of 1 spiritual group is just not solely one other signal of contempt for Turkey's wealthy Orthodox Christian heritage, however additional threatens the spiritual freedom of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the remaining Christians of this nation,” the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate stated in an announcement.
© Non secular Intelligence Service