The Hagia Sophia

http://paulcgardiner.blogspot.com/

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/88209.htm

The last post revealed this blogger's deficiencies in sentence formation.  This entry reveals his deficiencies in idea formation.  His thoughts inspired by the recent "takeover" by Islam at the Hagia Sophia in İstanbul, Türkiye, are are messy and conflicted.

The "takeover" news was from an article dated October 25, 2016, written by Michael van der Galien for PJ Media entitled "After 80 Years, Islamist Turkey Again Seizes Hagia Sophia Church for Islam."  [1]  Digging into the history of Constantinople [2], modern day İstanbul [3], is beyond the scope of this blog.  Suffice it to say that the Hagia Sophia was built by the East Roman Empire [4] and ought to belong to the Orthodox Church [5].  It was not so long ago that an article published by pravoslavie.ru reported that Russia wanted Türkiye to return the Hagia Sophia to the Orthodox Church.  The article, entitled "Moscow Wants Turkey To Return Cathedral Of Agia Sophia To Orthodox Church," [6] was dated November 26, 2015.  Less than a year later, the world knows that Moscow is not about to get its wish any time soon.

The actual "takeover" of the Hagia Sophia occurred "in 1453, [when] the Hagia Sophia was converted to a mosque.  In 1935, the first Turkish President and founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, transformed the building into a museum." [7]  In early 2016, according to PJ Media's article, "the Turkish government announced that it had appointed a permanent imam to the Hagia Sophia[, which] means that the Islamic call to prayer will now be heard five times a day, instead of two times -- and that it will basically function as any other mosque." [Emphasis original.]

Since this blogger is a Catholic (more accurately, supposed to be one), he probably should not talk about the Orthodox Church, but since it is also under a forgiving God, and a forgiving Son of God, he will go ahead banking on Their forgiveness.  Below are his fragmented thoughts.

First of all, Moscow's proposal is in this blogger's opinion, eminently fair, saying that the Hagia Sophia belongs to the Orthodox Church and "Russia is ready to participate financially, and to involve the best Russian architects and scientists in the restoration of the universal Christian monument." [8]  However, there is no indication if the restored building will serve as a fully functional Orthodox Church or continue to be a museum.  If the intent is to run it as a museum, who would collect the revenue from ticket sales?  Since the Orthodox Church is founded by Christ [9], does anyone think He would be happy to have His church operate as a museum and collect an entrance fee?

These matters do not need to be addressed because the Hagia Sophia is not going to be restored by Russia and it is not likely going to accommodate Orthodox Masses any time soon since an imam has been appointed to it.

When the Hagia Sophia was a secular monument for the last 80 or so years [10], was Allah happy with it being a museum instead of a mosque?  Should Allah care when the Blue Mosque [11] is only a 7-minute walk from the Hagia Sophia? [12]  Is Allah the same God as the Christian God and the Jewish God?  Are Judaism, Christianity and Islam not the big three Abrahamic religions? [13]

Sultan Ahmet Mosque, a.k.a. the Blue Mosque
Google Images

If God and Allah are one and the same, then does it make any difference who prays at the Hagia Sophia?  Has a prayer ever hurt anyone?  If a prayer is intended to cause harm, would it not be a curse instead?  Does saying Muslim prayers five-times a day at the Hagia Sophia annoy Christians more than saying them just two times a day?  How many modern day Muslims from around İstanbul have the time and the dedication to make a special trip to the Hagia Sophia to pray there five times a day?  Are the non-Muslims who have never participated in a five-times-a-day prayer gathering envious because some Muslims do pray five-times a day but they do not?  Does limiting the Muslims to twice-a-day prayer at the Hagia Sophia make Christians happy even though they have not expressed any interest to pray to God at the Hagia Sophia with any regularity?

Why do people always have to draw differences among themselves?  What are the reasons for having the Orthodox Church separate from the Catholic Church, for Christianity to have so many denominations [14] and for the Catholics to have so many different religious congregations [15]? What good is being done when a priest in the United States sometimes asks his congregation to pray for the troops who go to battle and kill when Christ says to "love your enemies?" [16]   Why not simply pray for a truce that would lead to a lasting peace rather than praying with a "us" versus "them" mentality?  Who is truly sinless and can cast the first stone? [17]  On the contrary, why not pray for the American troops who risk their lives for the citizens of the world so that they could be free?  The question then becomes free to be what--suffering refugees?  Without the gratuitous destabilization of Iraq, Libya and Syria, there probably would be a lot fewer refugees in the world than there are at present [18].  The fact that the world's media and this pope no longer focus their attention on the plight of the refugees does not mean that they have miraculously vanished or have returned home to live their lives with some semblance of normalcy.

Are people necessarily better off when they are being subjugated by an oppressive, well-funded majority rather than by an oppressive dictator?  How happy are the Greeks with the European Union's austerity measures?  Would they be even less happy if they were under a dictator and not part of the EU?  Are the refugees freer and happier now that Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi are dead and Bashar al-Assad is gone, knowing perhaps that Hussein's and Gadaffi's deaths and al-Assad's current absence could be considered as rites of passage by the politicians who sealed their fates and as abstract political trophies to be carried by the same politicians to their eventual graves and beyond?  If a dictator is so repugnant, why do so many people, Christians, Jews and Muslims choose freely to believe in one, Who happens to be perfectly benevolent, Who is God?  Why do they not assemble a democratic government so they can pray to it, or lobby its members for special "graces"?  Perhaps one is already in existence, populated by self-righteous and unforgiving intellectuals who think that they are always correct in their judgments and anyone who disagrees with them is always reprehensible.

And where does the "takeover" of the Hagia Sophia fit into all of these haphazard thoughts?  Perhaps there is a workable one that will sort of link them together to give them a purpose: let the Hagia Sophia be the only building in the world that all three major Abrahamic religions can share amicably, so that the faithful can say their prayers under one huge dome ("55.60 m. from ground level, 31.87 m. from North to South and 30.87 m. from East to West") [19], rotating the times and days each religion would be able to use the place, with no one religion claiming it as its own, but giving it to God, the one and only God that unites all of humanity without differentiating between "us" and "them" under one Love which is consistently pure and stable irrespective of the differences in religions, languages, cultures and governments.



[1] https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/10/25/after-80-years-islamist-turkey-again-seizes-hagia-sophia-church-for-islam/1/
[2] http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/battleswars14011600/p/Byzantine-Ottoman-Wars-Fall-Of-Constantinople.htm
[3] http://history.info/on-this-day/1930-the-city-of-constantinople-renamed-to-istanbul/
[4] http://ayasofyamuzesi.gov.tr/en/history
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia
[6] http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/88209.htm
[7] http://www.teslasociety.com/hagiasophia.htm
[8] http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/88209.htm
[9] http://www.antiochian.org/whatorthodoxbelieve
[10] http://www.teslasociety.com/hagiasophia.htm
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_Ahmed_Mosque
[12] Google Directions: 7 min (550 m) via Kabasakal Cd. and Atmeydanı Cd.
[13] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religion
[14] https://theway21stcentury.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/how-many-christian-denominations-worldwide/
[15] http://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article22 96.php (bottom of page)
[16] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205:43-48
[17] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+8%3A1-11&version=NIV
[18] http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/figures-at-a-glance.ht
[19] http://ayasofyamuzesi.gov.tr/en/int-hagia-sophias-dome