The sunset of secular Turkey
Christians around the world have been outraged by Turkey’s decision to convert the Hagia Sophia cathedral into a mosque. This astonishing architectural masterpiece was completed in 537 and is considered one of the Orthodox church’s holy sites. (The cathedral was, for 57 years after the crusades, a Roman Catholic church.) With the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, minarets were added, and it was converted into a mosque. In 1934, the secular leader of Turkey attempted to end the religious division over the building and turned it into a museum.The reader should notice that I place the responsibility for Hagia Sophia’s conversion on the nation of Turkey, not on President Erdogan.
