A Turkish court ruled this week that Istanbul's famous Hagia Sofia -- originally built as a breathtaking Greek Orthodox Church -- can be converted from a museum into a mosque, the Yahoo News website reports today (July 11, 2020).
Turkey's current president, Tayyip Erdogan, has been pushing for the site to be a place of Muslim worship, but the court ruling is likely to bring global condemnation.
The World Heritage site was at the center of both the Christian Byzantine and Muslim Ottoman empires and is today one of Turkey's most visited monuments.
UNESCO said that it must be notified of any change in the status of Hagia Sofia museum and a change may need to be approved by its World Heritage committee.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment