#hagia sofia

Byzantine Miku edited by my mother

i am second generation greek american with my yiayia and pappou having immigrated here in the 60s.

my yiayia and pappou on my mama's side were both born in istanbul and had fled by the time they were 20 due to the military and lingering ottomans. my other yiayia and pappou were born in villages near thessaloniki yet had predominantly pontic roots- for reference, my baba's dna test came back 97% pontic greek and 3% from thessaloniki.

since my roots are so heavily grounded in what is now turkiye, i have always taken a keen interest in byzantine history and simultaneously have had every single unit on byzantium and ancient greece ruined for me by inaccuracies that i have learned at my local churches and my mama who studied byzantine history for years.

that brings me to the topic i feel most strongly about: the hagia sophia, or agia sofia. what is your opinion, if you have on, on the decision to revert the agia sofia from a museum back into a functional mosque? personally, i feel as though reverting it from an orthodox church to a mosque in the first place was one of the most insulting things the ottomans could have done, but making it a museum and not a place of worship anymore was the best move besides actually making it a church again. reverting it back into a functioning mosque even though konstantinoupoli already has around 3000 mosques was, and many of my greek friends and family agree with me on this, an incredibly horrible decision and an insult.

you have a lovely greek blog and i hope you have a goodnight as it is quite late in greece now ❤️

I don't know about other ethnicities in the Byzantine empire but for Greeks the Hagia Sofia is still the most important church, and many make a pilgrimage to the site. Some even have a picture of the temple in their living room (I've seen it personally).

The Hagia Sofia has been such an important religious site and a sign of freedom and hope for Christians for so many centuries that is so bad that they made it a mosque again.

It feels like a punch to the gut repeating one if the original offendes of the Christian oppression in the Ottoman empire.

Built in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul)

By Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus

Created c. 532-537 CE