ISTANBUL, July 24. /TASS/. Turkish law enforcement officers are beefing up security as Hagia Sophia, the status of which has been changed from a museum to a mosque, prepares for Friday prayer, TASS reports from the scene.
A hundred law enforcement officers are involved in ensuring security near Hagia Sophia. Almost all nearby streets are completely closed to traffic, in this regard, one can approach the Istanbul cathedral only through 11 specially prepared checkpoints.
At the same time, the media have access only through the checkpoint on Kennedy Street. The very process of obtaining media accreditation took at least two hours. According to TASS correspondent, representatives of not only Turkish media, but also foreign ones, including BBC, Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, and TBS and others, show interest in Friday prayer in Hagia Sophia.
Currently, hundreds of Muslim pilgrims have gathered near the Hagia Sophia itself, all expecting to be allowed to worship inside the cathedral after an afternoon prayer, in which Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, members of the government and parliamentarians will take part.
Along the perimeter in front of Hagia Sophia in Sultanahmet Square, there are screens and huge columns through which excerpts from the Koran are now being broadcast. People will be able to follow the prayer in Hagia Sophia afterwards on those screens, the prayer should start at 13:16 Moscow time.
For the period of Muslim worship, as promised by the authorities of the republic, the interior decoration of the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia, including icons and frescoes, will be hidden from the eyes of worshipers by special curtains.
A unique architectural complex
Hagia Sophia is a Byzantine architectural monument. The cathedral was constructed between 532 and 537 AD by a decree from then Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.
After the fall of Byzantine Empire in 1453, the cathedral was converted into a mosque. In 1935, under the decree of the Turkish government signed by the founder of the modern Turkish state Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the building was transformed into a museum. White plaster covering Christian mosaics and murals was removed. In 1985, the building was included on the UNESCO World Heritage’s list of monuments.
Hagia Sophia is an architectural complex that has preserved elements of both Christian and Muslim eras. This building remained the largest religious building in the Christian world for almost a thousand years (until the construction of the Catholic cathedral in Seville in the early 16th century). The temple is 100 meters long, 69.5 meters wide, the dome's height amounts to 55.6 meters, its diameter is 32 meters. The cathedral became the most expensive building of the Byzantine emperors: about 130 tonnes of gold were used during its construction.
The temple, built of marble and brick, survived several earthquakes and fires, was repeatedly restored and rebuilt. Its interior decoration lasted for several centuries and was considered as very extravagant. During the Ottoman period, the cathedral was supplemented with four minarets, a mihrab (a niche that indicates the direction of Mecca) and a marble minbar (a pulpit in a mosque).
During restoration in the 1930s and 1950s, mosaics and frescoes from the Byzantine era were found under a layer of plaster. Thus, at present, one can see both the image of Jesus Christ and sayings from the Koran on the cathedral's eight huge shields (the world's largest works of art of Islamic calligraphy).
In 1985, the building was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
On July 10, the Turkish Council of State invalidated Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s 1934 decree that had bestowed Hagia Sophia with its museum status. Later in the day, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed an order declaring Hagia Sophia open for Muslim worship. Local Orthodox Churches, including the Russian Orthodox Church, voiced their regret over the decision, along with UNESCO.