The Catholic Weekly 9 August 2020

catholicweekly.com.au 17 9, August, 2020 FEATURE Worshippers attend Friday prayers at Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque in Istanbul on 24 July. PHOTO: CNS PHOTO/UMIT BEKTAS, REUTERS TS ABOUT A SOPHIA E OF WORSHIP AN TEMPLE STOOD ON THE SITE OF NOWN AS HAGIA SOPHIA. HE HAGIA SOPHIA WAS BUILT S THE PATRIARCHAL CATHEDRAL OF ONSTANTINOPLE OTTOMAN SULTAN MEHMED II ESIGNATED THE HAGIA SOPHIA AS MOSQUE AFTER HIS CONQUEST OF ONSTANTINOPLE. HE TURKISH REPUBLIC’S FIRST RESIDENT, KEMAL ATTATURK, ONVERTED IT INTO A MUSEUM WHAT’S IN THE NAME? HAGIA SOPHIA IS KNOWN BY SEVERAL DIFFERENT TITLES SUCH AS AYASOFYA IN TURKISH, SANCTA SOPHIA IN LATIN, AND HOLY WISDOM OR DIVINE WISDOM IN ENGLISH. HAGIA SOPHIA IS THE GREEK TRANSLATION OF ‘HOLY WISDOM’. FACT: ITS EARLIER NAME, ‘MEGALE EKKLESIA’ MEANS ‘GREAT CHURCH.’ THE NOW-MOSQUE known as Hagia Sophia was, for nearly a thousand years, the greatest church in Christendom, easily dwarfing the original Ba- silica of St Peter in Rome. When Constantinople, the last vestige of the Ro- man Empire, fell toMus- limconquest in 1453, its loss – together with the loss of the greatest Church in Christendom (and the spiritual mother Church of Eastern Christianity) – sent a shockwave through- out Christendom. Known in Latin as Sancta Sophia, it has also vari- ou8sly been referred to as the Church of the HolyWis- domor Church of the Divine Wisdom, a cathedral built extremely rapidly between 532–537ADby the Byzan- tine emperor Justinian I. By general consensus, it is themost important Byzan- tine structure and one of the world’s great monuments. According to the Ency- clopedia Britannica, Hagia Sophia was built in the re- markably short time of about six years, being completed in 537 AD. Unusual for the period inwhich it was built, the names of the building’s architects—Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Mi- letus—are well known, as is their familiarity withme- chanics andmathematics. The Hagia Sophia com- bines a longitudinal basilica and a centralised building in a wholly original manner, with a huge 32-metremain dome. In plan, the building is almost square.There are three aisles separated by col- umns with galleries above and great marble piers ris- ing up to support the dome. The walls above the galler- ies and the base of the dome are pierced by windows, which in the glare of day- light obscure the supports and give the impression that the canopy floats on air. The original church on the site of the Hagia Sophia is said to have been ordered to be built by Constantine I, the first Christian em- peror, in 325 on the foun- dations of a pagan tem- Church a crowning masterpiece of centuries ple. His son, Constantius II, consecrated it in 360. It was damaged in 404 by a fire that erupted during a riot following the second ban- ishment of St John Chrysos- tom, probably for his oppo- sition to the christological heresy known as Arianism. It was rebuilt and enlarged by the Roman emperor Con- stans I.The restored build- ing was rededicated in 415 byTheodosius II.The church was burned again in the Nika insurrection of Janu- ary 532, a circumstance that gave Justinian I, an accom- plished amateur theologian, an opportunity to envision a splendid replacement. The structure now stand- ing is essentially the 6th-Cen- tury edifice, although an earthquake caused a par- tial collapse in 558 (re- stored 562), after which it was rebuilt to a smaller scale and the whole church reinforced from the out- side. It was restored again in themid-14th century. For more than amillen- nium it was the Cathedral of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. It was – bi- zarrely – looted in 1204 by the Venetians and the Crusad- ers on the Fourth Crusade, a violation that is – perfectly understandably – remem- bered by EasternOrthodox churches to this very day. After the Turkish con- quest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II had it repurposed as amosque. Theminarets were added by subsequent Muslim rulers. In 1934 Turkish Presi- dent Kemal Atatürk secular- ised the building. In 1935 it wasmade into amuseum. Art historians consider the building’s beautiful mosa- ics to be themain source of knowledge about the state of mosaic art in the time shortly after the end of the Iconoclastic Controversy in the 8th and 9th centuries. Hagia Sophia is a com- ponent of a UNESCOWorld Heritage site called the His- toric Areas of Istanbul (desig- nated 1985), which includes that city’s other major his- toric buildings and locations. SOURCE: ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA