Istanbul: It has been five years since Hagia Sophia once the most magnificent cathedral of Christendom was reconverted into a mosque, sending shockwaves across the global Christian community. What was once a gesture of secular unity and cultural harmony under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was swiftly overturned on July 10, 2020, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a decree reestablishing Islamic prayers in the ancient basilica. The first prayer was held on July 24, 2020, as Turkish leadership, surrounded by Islamic clerics, stood beneath the once-Christian dome, now veiled in green banners and cloth coverings. That moment, for millions of Christians worldwide, marked not just a political event but a spiritual wound.
Built in 537 AD during the reign of Emperor Justinian I, Hagia Sophia, or “Holy Wisdom,” was more than an architectural wonder it was the beating heart of Orthodox Christianity. For nearly a thousand years, it stood as the largest cathedral in the world, home to the divine liturgy and the echoes of Byzantine chant. Its gilded mosaics of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and angelic hosts were not just decorations, but sacred expressions of a faith that had endured centuries of persecution and division. Even after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, when the Ottomans seized the city and converted the cathedral into a mosque, the Christian soul of the building remained imprinted in its bones often hidden, but never erased.
When Atatürk established Hagia Sophia as a museum in 1935, he did so as a gesture of reconciliation, bridging East and West, Islam and Christianity, past and present. Under UNESCO World Heritage protection, millions visited the site as a shared treasure of humanity. Christians, and secular travelers alike could marvel at its towering dome, walk beneath the gaze of Christ Pantocrator, and feel a reverence that transcended borders and beliefs. For Christians, in particular, the museum was a small yet significant comfort a recognition that their history in the city of Constantinople had not been completely forgotten.
The 2020 decision to revert Hagia Sophia into a mosque shattered that fragile sense of shared history. Despite widespread appeals from global leaders and church heads including the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and Pope Francis himself the Turkish government ignored all diplomatic and moral objections. Pope Francis, visibly shaken, expressed his grief in a moment of silence that resonated more loudly than any protest. Greece, the United States, Russia, and the European Union all denounced the move. UNESCO expressed concern over the violation of international commitments. Yet none of it deterred Ankara’s actions.
For Christians, the symbolism was devastating. Though officials claimed the building would remain open to visitors outside prayer times, the transformation has significantly altered the spiritual atmosphere. The universal accessibility once celebrated at Hagia Sophia has diminished, and with it, the sense that Christianity’s heritage was being honored in one of its most sacred historical sites.
Today, on the fifth anniversary of the first prayer, Christian communities around the world mark the date with somber remembrance. In Greece, church bells toll in mourning. In Rome, Istanbul, and across Orthodox and Catholic churches worldwide, lit candles and solemn prayers pay tribute not only to the building, but to what it represented a sanctuary of Christian identity in a city that was once the cradle of the Eastern Church. For many, this anniversary is not simply about a physical structure, but about the continued marginalization of Christian history in a region where it once flourished.
As the sun sets over Istanbul today, the dome of Hagia Sophia gleams as it always has timeless, resilient, and heavy with memory. But for Christians, its light no longer feels like it shines for all. Instead, it stands as a monument of grief, a symbol of how even sacred spaces can fall to the ambitions of power, and how faith, once cast aside, never forgets where it once knelt to pray.