The Hagia Sophia is a major historical monument and a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Istanbul, Turkey. The sixth-century architectural masterpiece is famous for reflecting the various religious ...

Turkey will convert the Hagia Sophia cultural site back into a functioning mosque. The millenary place of worship was turned into a museum in 1934. The country’s top administrative court annulled ...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday formally reconverted Istanbul's sixth-century iconic Hagia Sophia into a mosque and declared it open to Muslim worship, hours after a high court ...

Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia will be converted into a mosque after 85 years as a museum, according to a decree issued today, July 10, by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The decision has drawn ...

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The Turkish government formally converted a former Byzantine church into a mosque Friday, a move that came a month after it drew praise from the faithful and international ...

Politicians and scholars from around the world have expressed alarm at the possible ruling. Hagia Sophia, a former Greek Orthodox Christian cathedral, later an Ottoman mosque. Photo by Frank Bienewald ...

Art historian Andrew Gould had studied many copies of the exquisite mosaic of Jesus found high in Istanbul's sixth-century Hagia Sophia cathedral. But that didn't prepare the architect and sacred ...

Empires have risen and fallen, but the dome of the great basilica remains, dominating the skyline of Istanbul for the past 14 centuries. Built by the Roman emperor Justinian in 532 as the Church of ...

ISTANBUL — In its more than 1,400-year existence, the majestic domed structure of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul has served as the Byzantine Empire’s main cathedral, a mosque under the Ottoman Empire and a ...

Seraffettin was at home under coronavirus ­lockdown on May 29 when a Muslim cleric recited Quranic verses atop a carpeted dais inside Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia museum. But the imam’s reading, to mark ...

ANKARA, Turkey — The Turkish government formally converted a former Byzantine church into a mosque Friday, a move that came a month after it drew praise from the faithful and international opposition ...