Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a Turkish politician serving as the 12th and current President of Turkey. COURTESY PHOTO.
Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has ordered that a 700-year-old Church be turned into a fully functioning mosque.
According to the Associated Press reported, the 66-year-old who is seeking to gain support among his conservative base amid economic and political uncertainty, said Istanbul’s medieval Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora — also known as the Kariye Museum — be handed over to authorities for its conversion into a Muslim house of prayer.
This development comes a month since another former cathedral, Hagia Sophia, was converted from a museum into a mosque.
Built in the early 4th century by Constantine the Great, the secular Turkish republic in 1945 declared the Church of the Holy Saviour building a national monument, and extensive restoration and conservation work was carried out on the structure’s artworks before it opened as a museum in 1958.
Like Hagia Sophia, the building is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, reports show.
The Christian Post reports that the foreign ministry of Greece, condemned Erdogan’s decision for “once again brutally insulting the character” of another U.N. world heritage site.
“This is a provocation against all believers,” the Greek ministry said in a statement. “We urge Turkey to return to the 21st century, and the mutual respect, dialogue and understanding between civilizations.”
While speaking to media, Turkey’s Opposition HDP party lawmaker Garo Paylan called the move “a shame for our country.”
Elpidophoros, the Greek Orthodox archbishop of America, wrote on Twitter: “After the tragic transgression with Hagia Sophia, now the Monastery of Chora, this exquisite offering of Byzantine culture to the world!”
Last month, Mr Erdogan joined hundreds of worshippers for the first Muslim prayers in Hagia Sophia in 86 years, brushing aside the international criticism and calls for the monument to be kept as a museum in recognition of Istanbul’s multi-faith heritage.
As many as 350,000 took part in the prayers outside the structure.
As of Saturday, Turkey’s total number of coronavirus cases stood at 257,032, while the country’s death toll increased to 6,102. The total number of recoveries is 236,370, according to the Health Minister Fahrettin Koca.
News Agencies contributed to this report.
