For 916 years it was a church, and a mosque for 481 years... Now (since 1935) a cherished Monument of Unity. Challenges facing our multi-cultural world have a need for Unity structures as reminder that faith & Peace connects us ALL...
The Ayasofya Museum
Man has fought and sacrificed in the rivers of belief... But his embrace of simularities, is his one true, and ultimate wisdom...
Best prayer, today... :|
More about the Ayasofya Museum: Considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture. It was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years, until the completion of the Medieval Seville Cathedral in 1520...
The current building was originally constructed as a church between 532 and 537 AD on the orders of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, and was in fact the third Church of the Ναός τῆς Ἁγίας τοῦ Θεοῦ Σοφίας (Holy Wisdom) to occupy the site... The previous two had both been destroyed by riots...It remained as a mosque until 1935, when it was converted into a museum by the secular Republic of Turkey. (So says Wiki) View more
In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and Sultan Mehmed II ordered the building to be converted into a mosque. The bells, altar, iconostasis, and sacrificial vessels were removed, and many of the mosaics were eventually plastered over...
NOTE: The fall of the city fulfilled the call of the city's capture hundreds of years earlier. With the rise of Arab nationalism however and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the efforts of Saladin became more popular in the Middle East than the achievements of Mehmed...
On and on...
Spiritual Places...
Beautiful: Masjid in Madina
Lovely Church: Berlin Dom
Pray its not a: Rinse and Repeat
