Church to Mosque to Museum: Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia is located in the Sultanahmet area, nearby Topkapı palace in the European part of Istanbul, Turkey.

Constantius II inaugurated the “Great Church” of Hagia Sophia on 15 February 360. It was constructed on the site of a pagan temple by the orders of Constantine the Great. This church built of wood was mostly burnt down in 404 during riots when patriarch John Chrysostom was sent into exile by the Emperor Arcadius.

Theodosius II later ordered the church to be rebuilt and inaugurated the second church on 10 October 405. The second church was completely destroyed during the Nika Revolt in 13-14 January 532.

Justinian the Great commissioned two men, Anthemius of Tralles and the Elder Isidore of Miletus to build a third church at the same location. This was to be greater than the previous two churches. Using more than ten thousand workers for its construction the third church was inaugurated by the emperor on 27 December 537. The mosaics were finished later on, during the reign of Justin II (565-578). It became the centre of Orthodox Christianity until 1453.

Ever since Prophet Muhammad had prophesied that the first Muslim to pray in Hagia Sophia would go to paradise, the Islamic leaders wanted Hagia Sophia as a mosque. Mehmet II Sultan of the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople on 29 May 1453. He stopped the looting of Hagia Sophia and ordered the Church to be converted and used as a Mosque. Later rulers added minarets, mausoleums, a medrese, a kitchen to distribute poor, and a library, and a fountain for ritual ablutions.

In 1934, the founder of Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, ordered the building to be transformed into a museum.

Hagia Sophia is famous mainly because of its dome built by brick and mortar, 102 feet 6 inches in diameter and 182 feet 5 inches in height. The dome sits at the center of the structure in between two half domes whose combined diameter equals the diameter of the larger one.

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