A court in Turkey has announced that it has ruled in favor of a government-backed proposal to turn the city’s famous Hagia Sophia museum back into a mosque.
A court in Turkey has announced that it has ruled in favor of a government-backed proposal to turn the city’s famous Hagia Sophia museum back into a mosque.
According to state-run Anadolu Agency, Turkey’s top administrative court annulled a 1934 presidential decree converting Hagia Sophia into a museum.
Shortly after the ruling, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a presidential decree transferring the management of the site from the Ministry of Culture to the Presidency of Religious Affairs, paving the way for its conversion. Erdogan has long been a proponent of the move.
The Hagia Sophia was the Roman Empire’s first Christian cathedral and is among the best known Byzantine structures in the world. It switched from a Greek Orthodox cathedral to a mosque in 1453. The historic site then became a museum in 1935.
İsmail Kandemir, head of the Association for the Service of the Historical Foundations and the Environment, said after the hearing that „using Hagia Sophia as a museum hurts conscience of people,“ according to Turkish news agency Anadolu.
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Hours before the announcement, UNESCO called on Turkey to avoid changing the „outstanding universal value“ of the site and requested „prior notification,“ signaling that it could change the Hagia Sophia’s status on the World Heritage List.
The association filed a lawsuit to the Council of State in 2005 calling for the site to return to being a mosque, but it was rejected in 2008, according to Turkish news agency Anadolu.
