Pope Francis has said he was hurt by Turkey’s decision to make Istanbul Hagia Sofia museum of a mosque, but Ankara said the decision will be Maintain a relationship of equality and mutual respect in the country.
It was the Vatican’s first reaction to Turkey’s decision to transform the Byzantine-era monument into a mosque, a movement that has drawn criticism from around the world.
“I think of Hagia Sophia and I am very sad,” said Pope Francis at the end of his noon sermon in St. Peter’s Square.
The World Council of Churches has called for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to reverse his decision, Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians based in Istanbul, called it disappointing.
On Saturday, Erdogan rejected international condemnation over the decision to change the status of Istanbul’s historic Hagia Sophia from a museum to a mosque.
“Those who do not take action against Islamophobia in their own countries … attack Turkey’s willingness to use its sovereign rights,” Erdogan said at a ceremony he attended on Saturday via video conference.
‘Geopolitical end’
Hagia Sophia was built 1,500 years ago as an Orthodox Christian cathedral and became a mosque after the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, now Istanbul, in 1453. The Turkish secular government decided in 1934 to convert it into a museum.
On Friday Erdogan formally converted the building into a mosque and declared it open for Muslim worship, hours after a higher court overturned the 1934 decision.
Bishop Hilarion, who heads the external relations department of the Russian Orthodox Church, described it as “a hard blow to global Christianity.”
The World Council of Churches, which represents 350 Christian churches, said it had written to Erdogan expressing “pain and dismay”.
The head of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Ieronymos, denounced on Sunday what he described as “the instrumentalization of religion for partisan or geopolitical purposes.”
“The outrage and arrogance concern not only the Orthodox Church and Christianity, but all civilized humanity … regardless of religion,” he added.
Erdogan said Hagia Sophia – known as Ayasofya in Turkey – it would remain open to Muslims, Christians and foreigners.
“The doors of Hagia Sophia will remain open to visitors from all over the world,” President Fahrettin Altun’s press adviser said on Saturday. “People of all religious denominations are welcome and encouraged to visit it, just as other mosques have been able to visit, including the Blue Mosque.”
UNESCO said its World Heritage Committee will review Hagia SofiaTurkey’s state and decision raised questions about the effect on its universal value as a site of importance that transcends borders and generations.
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