Hagia Sophia — Istanbul, Turkey
Today we made a long awaited visit to Hagia Sophia. As you may be aware Hagia Sophia (or the Basilica of St Sophia as it was first known) was built by the Emperor Constantine when he founded Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 330 AD. Constantinople (modern Turkish: İstanbul) was the capital city of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, the Latin and the Ottoman Empire. It was built on the site of Byzantium. It was founded at ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire. In the 1100s the city was the largest and wealthiest European city of the Middle Ages. Eventually, the empire of Christian Eastern Orthdoxy in the east was reduced to just the capital and its environs, falling to the Muslims in the historic battle of 1453. Hagia Sophia was Islamised and the Christian frescoes were whitewashed and plastered over. After Mustapha Kemal Attaturk became president of Turkey and it became a secular state it was decided in 1934 that Hagia Sophia should become a museum. It is a massive structure and reflects its Christian origins and Islamic colonisation. The main section of the church contains a number of huge wooden discs with Islamic writing as does the central dome in the roof. Today there seemed to be an enormous cross section of people visiting it, young and old, Muslim and Christian. Very little of the original building remains, except some marble columns and other fragments. I found myself wondering what Hagia Sophia would have looked like if it hadn't been conquered by Islam. I suspect it would have a very different feel. To be honest it felt like a funny mix of Christian and Muslim, without it being distinctively one or the other. Quite a deal of superstition attaches to the church. There was a marble column that people were putting their thumb into in the hope that it would bring them good luck. Maybe it has always been thus. As we have travelled around we have noticed again and again that Mary is portrayed as large and life giving and succouring, whereas Jesus is mostly small, a child and more often than not dead. The symbolism is powerful and the conclusions inescapable. I was struck by the huge frescoe of the Virgin who totally overshadowed the young boy Jesus on her lap. Mary is seen by many in this part of the world as the Theotokos, God bearer, which has led to her being called
the mother of God. In my books if Mary was the mother of God, that makes
her greater than God. In fact that makes her God. I know Rosanne has a different angle on this but it worries me. Nevertheless, Hagia Sophia is an amazing building and one that has brought great glory to God.