Turkish President Regepi Taipa Erdogan on Friday ordered Muslim prayer places in Istanbul to be made into another Byzantine Orthodox church that was converted into a mosque after the fall of Constantinople and has been a museum for the past decade.
The decision to convert the Curia Museum into a mosque was made a month after the building of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, which had also been a museum for many years, was converted into a mosque.
The Church of Christ the Savior in the ensemble of the Hora Monastery is a 14th-century Byzantine church with significant Byzantine sacred works of art – frescoes and mosaics.
The Orthodox Church was first converted into a mosque half a century after Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the modern Turkish republic sought to strengthen the image of a secular state, and the building of the ancient church became a museum after World War II.
American art historians helped restore the church’s mosaics, and from 1958 onwards, visitors to the museum could see them again.
In recent years, Erdogan has increasingly emphasized the fighting that led to the Ottoman victory over Byzantium.
In November, the Turkish Supreme Administrative Court approved the conversion of the museum into a mosque.
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