Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday led the first Muslim prayers attended by thousands in Hagia Sophia since the controversial reconversion of the iconic Istanbul cathedral into a mosque.
The UNESCO World Heritage Site was first built as a cathedral in the Christian Byzantine Empire but was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.
The Council of State, the highest administrative court, on July 10 unanimously cancelled a 1934 decision by modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to turn it into a museum, saying it was registered as a mosque in its property deeds. Mr. Erdogan then swiftly ordered the building to reopen for Muslim worship, deeply angering the Christian community and further straining relations with NATO ally Greece.
He recited a verse from the Koran on Friday after earlier recitations from the holy book in the morning inside Hagia Sophia.
The sounds of the call to prayer from its four minarets reverberated around the area and on Turkish television screens.
The head of the state religious affairs agency, Ali Erbas, later delivered the Friday sermon holding a sword as a symbol of conquest. “The reopening of Hagia Sophia... is the return of a sacred place, which had embraced believers for five centuries, to its original function,” he told the congregation.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, tight crowds formed around the landmark. One of those attending the prayer came especially from the Aegean region of Izmir. “We see this as the second conquest of Istanbul,” said Selahattin Pamukcu, 33.
Experts say Mr. Erdogan’s move to reconvert Hagia Sophia is an attempt to galvanise his conservative and nationalist base amid economic uncertainty exacerbated by the virus outbreak and some polls suggesting his ruling party is losing votes. The decision has also undone part of the secular legacy of Ataturk, who wanted Hagia Sophia as a museum so as to “offer it to humanity”.
The timing of the first prayer is significant. Friday is the 97th anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne, which set modern Turkey’s borders after years of conflict with Greece and Western powers. Mr. Erdogan, who professes nostalgia for the Ottoman empire, has called for the treaty’s revision in recent years.
‘A provocation’
Greece has denounced the reconversion of Hagia Sophia to a mosque, seeing it as a provocation to the “entire civilised world”.
“What is happening in (Istanbul) this day is not a show of force, but proof of weakness,” Greek premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a statement. “Especially to us Orthodox Christians, Hagia Sophia today is in our hearts more than ever. It is where our heart beats.”