An icon of religion that has certainly tried its hand at a few things.

We find ourselves in Turkey, taking a look at an absolutely magnificent building that has lived several lives. With some recent changes taking centre stage in the media. Come on a journey of changing empires and epic proportions.

Building the Hagia Sophia

Meaning ‘holy wisdom’ the Hagia Sophia is an amazing structure that can only be described as an architectural marvel. Located in Istanbul in Turkey, the Hagia Sophia is pretty much akin to the Eiffel Tower or the Parthenon.

As you’ll find out, the Hagia Sophia has not shied away from politics or religion and has been an architectural influence throughout the world.

Starting life as a Christian Basilica about 1500 years ago, the first Hagia Sophia was commissioned by the Byzantine Emperor, Constantius in 360 AD.

This name might be slightly familiar to you, and that’s because back in the day Istanbul went by Constantinople. This was because Constantine I, the first ruler of the Byzantine Empire, and conveniently Constantius’ father, had the city named after himself. And why not? When you’re the first emperor of a pretty major Empire you can do whatever you want. Anyway, as my history teacher used to say, ‘I digress’.

So the OG Hagia Sophia had a wooden roof, which wasn’t really the brightest idea because the whole thing kind of burnt down in 404, when riots broke out during Arkadios’ pretty shaky reign from 395 to 408.

The next emperor, Theodosios II, decided a new Hagia Sophia was needed and this second Hagia Sophia was finished in 415. It had five naves and a pretty awesome entrance. But they hadn’t really learnt their lesson from the first Hagia Sophia, because the roof on this building was also wooden.

Despite this wooden roof lasting a good century, it would experience the same fate as the first, when the Basilica, which by this time was a pretty important building in the Greek Orthodox faith, burnt down for a second time. This time it was during what is known as the ‘Nika Revolts’, when the people weren’t too happy with their Emperor at the time, Justinian I, who was around from 527 to 565.

But Justinian wasn’t going to let a pesky little revolt put him down. Literally days after the revolts ended, he had the ruins of the Hagia Sophia levelled and declared he would build a third, better than ever, Hagia Sophia in 532.

Justinian had just two blokes in mind, there was Isidoros of Miletus who was a Professor of Mechanics, and Anthemius of Tralles, a well-known mathematician.

While these two chaps would be known as architects, or maybe more appropriately, engineers in a modern world, W. Eugene Kleinbauer, describes in his book, Hagia Sophia, how they were seen in the ancient world:

Contemporary writers do not refer to Anthemios and Isidore as architects, though the term was common in the 6th century, but as mechanikoi … These terms denote a very small number of practitioners of the arts of design, whether of buildings or of machines or other works.

Justinian’s biographer, Procopios, also mentions the lads and had this to say about their role in the building of the Hagia Sophia:

Anthemius of Tralles, the most learned man in the skilled craft which is known as the art of building … and associated with him as another master-builder, Isidoros by name, a Milesian by birth, a man who was intelligent and worthy to assist the Emperor Justinian.

Justinian is said to have been so involved and passionate about his building project, that he would split the workers into two groups, place them on either side of the worksite and have them race to see which side would finish the build the fastest.

The third Hagia Sophia to sit on the site was finished in 537 and is actually the building that we see today. It might surprise you to find out that such a massive building was finished in only 6 years. You might be thinking, 6 years? That’s a good chunk of time, but it’s actually the Usain Bolt of ancient building timeframes. Especially when you compare it to the century it took to complete Notre Dame, or the fact that the La Sagrada Familia is still being built and isn’t now expected to be finished until 2026.

The ancient writer, Paul the Silentiary, who was around in the 500s, reckoned the place was a representation of the awesomeness of both Justinian and Christianity. Here’s a translation by Peter Bell from the book Three Political Voices from the Age of Justinian:

I say, renowned Roman Capitol, give way! My Emperor has so far overtopped that wonder as great God is superior to an idol!

The brand new Hagia Sophia had its first services on 27 December, 537.

Even though the Basilica was finished and open for services, in Justinian’s haste to have his Hagia Sophia, short cuts had inevitably been taken, meaning that problems soon arose.

In his book on buildings built by Justinian, Procopios says that the dome had some major issues, and was constantly threatening to collapse.

He says:

The piers on top of which the [dome] was being built, unable to bear the mass that was pressing down on them, somehow or other suddenly started to break away and seemed to be on the point of collapsing…

But this wasn’t Anthemius and Isidoros’ first rodeo. They sorted out the problems and here’s what Procopios had to say about that:

…the huge spherical dome [makes] the structure exceptionally beautiful. Yet it seems not to rest upon solid masonry, but to cover the space with its golden dome suspended from Heaven.

Even though the roof stood for about two decades, it did eventually fall, and it was Isidore the Younger, nephew to the original Isidoros, who was the one to build a new dome. He must have done a pretty good job, because the dome’s still around today.

Victoria Hammond tells us how Isidore Junior managed it in her book Visions of Heaven: The Dome in European Architecture:

The dome rests not on a drum but on pendentives, spherical triangles that arise from four huge piers that carry that weight of the cupola. The pendentives made it possible to place the dome over a square compartment.

There’s an old story that’s been around since the Hagia Sophia’s construction that could explain some of the miracles associated with the church.

Supposedly, when the place was being built, the workmen came across an issue. It must have been a pretty big issue because every single person working on the building all went to seek help with the problem. Leaving behind a little kid to keep an eye on their tools. While the little kid was waiting for literally everyone to come back, a random person just appeared inside the building, this person told the kid how to fix the problem everyone had left to figure out. The person told the little kid to run along and tell the construction workers the solution to their problem, and while the kid was gone, they would guard the tools until the kid came back. So off went this little kid. He found all the construction workers and managed to tell them what happened. I assume that the immediate reaction would have been shock and horror at the little kid literally leaving a stranger to watch over the construction site. But that was soon pushed aside by awe at how ingenious the solution to their construction problem was. As is often the first thought, the construction workers declared this random person to be an angel, and because the angel has said they would stay until the little boy came back, the boy was shipped off and forbidden to return to the Hagia Sophia, meaning that the angel would be forced to wait an eternity for the little boy’s return.

Now I have some serious issues with this story, for instance, did the workers see this mysterious figure when they returned to keep working? How did they know this figure was an angel and not someone who just sent the kid away to take all the tools for themselves? There are many questions with this, and not many answers.

The layout

The Hagia Sophia, especially the third one, which is the one we see today, is pretty amazing. It’s central building has the massive roughly 32 metre dome that sits on pendentives, and two smaller semi-domes on either side.

With the foundation being pretty much square, having a dome as a roof is quite a feat, that was conquered by our old mate medieval engineers.

Here’s an extract from Helen Gardner and Fred Kleiner’s book Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: A Global History, giving us some basic numbers:

Hagia Sophia’s dimensions are formidable for any structure not built of steel. In plan it is about 82 metres long and 73 metres wide. The dome is 33 metres in diameter and its crown rises some 55 metres above the pavement.

The building is actually two storeys with the second storey being a gallery. Just above the gallery, but just below the dome are about 40 windows that give ample natural light. It’s these windows that give the illusion of the dome almost floating above the gallery. Here’s Victoria Hammond to explain it with a little more imagination:

The sunlight emanating from the windows surrounding its lofty cupola, suffusing the interior and irradiating its gold mosaics, seemed to dissolve the solidity of the walls and created an ambience of ineffable mystery. On the completion of Hagia Sophia, Justinian is said to have remarked, ‘Solomon, I have outdone thee’.

This reference to Solomon is because, Justinian’s Hagia Sophia’s dome was meant to have been the largest dome in the known world, surpassing that of Solomon’s Great Temple that could be found in Jerusalem, who had previously held the title.

In order to make his basilica pretty much the ultimate representation of the Byzantine Empire, Justinian decreed that every part of the empire had to contribute, and so the marble used for the floor and the ceiling came from Anatol ia, which is modern day eastern Turkey, and Syria. And the bricks that were used in the walls came all the way from Northern Africa.

There are 104 columns that hold up the Hagia Sophia, and each one was imported from the Temple of Artemis that used to stand in Ephesus, you can still see the Temple’s ruins on the eastern coast of Turkey, and some columns also came from Egypt, and why not, I’m sure they had plenty spare.

Justinian’s basilica was a pretty massive achievement and was believed to have been the tallest building in the world, until the St. Peter’s Basilica came along, effectively stealing the title.

It’s believed to have originally been covered with around 30 million gold mosaic tiles to really make it shimmer in that mid-day sun, but these day’s you’ll see the dome decorated with inscriptions from the Koran.

Hagia Sophia, the Church

As we already know, the original function of the Hagia Sophia was as a Basilica for the Greek Orthodox Christian Church. But as the centuries have worn on, this has changed several times.

Because Greek Orthodox was the official religion of the Byzantine Empire, then naturally the Hagia Sophia would be a church of the Greek Orthodox faith. But the Hagia Sophia also got a pretty fancy title. Much like Westminster Abbey today, the Hagia Sophia was where all new emperors were crowned. The ceremonies were held in the nave, where in the floor, there was a circular pattern made out of colourful stones and placed in intricate patterns.

The Hagia Sophia was a pretty major part of the Byzantine Culture having been around for almost all of its 900 year existence. And even when the Crusades came to town and Constantinople was briefly part of the Roman Empire in the 13th century, the Hagia Sophia, while a little beaten and bruised was still a major centre for the Byzantines once they got her back.

Naturally being a church associated with an orthodox religion meant that relics were kept for safe keeping within its walls. Supposedly at one stage several of them called the Hagia Sophia home, like a stone believed to have been apart of Jesus’ tomb, Jesus’ shroud, the lance that poked Jesus in the side, parts of the cross, and just to mix things up so it didn’t seem like Jesus was keeping all his old stuff in one place, you could also find St Thomas’ finger, but just the doubting one and then a couple bones from other saints. But as often happens when the Crusades come through, all this stuff was taken, and perhaps lost in some secret Crusade cache hidden somewhere forever.

So inside the first two renditions of the Hagia Sophia, the decorations probably would have been pretty simple, a couple of crosses, the usual. But as time went on, beautifully ornate mosaics were added. Historian Caroline Goodson describes it like this in a National Geographic documentary:

There are a number of mosaics that have been added over the centuries, imperial portraits, images of the imperial family, images of Christ and different emperors, those have been added since Justinian’s day.

The mosaics that could be found on the walls were made with bits of gold, silver, terracotta, glass and even colourful stones.

The fact that the Hagia Sophia has a gallery as a second level meant that back in the day worshippers were most likely separated by class and gender. Here’s how it’s explained in The Byzantine World:

…galleries seem to have been used as a means of segregation of genders and of social classes. In Hagia Sophia a part of the gallery was used as an imperial lodge, from which the empress and occasionally the emperor attended the services.

The Emperor didn’t just get a separated section for services, they also got a whole separate private door. Antony White tells us about it in his chapter in Hagia Sophia:

The central or Imperial Door was reserved for the use of the emperor and his attendants and provides the most perfect approach to the interior of the church.

Hagia Sophia, the Mosque

So throughout the length of the Byzantine Empire, the Hagia Sophia was a pretty major church. But in  the 1450s the Hagia Sophia and pretty much all of modern-day Turkey went through a major shift.

It was 1453, and the Ottoman Emperor Mehmet II came through and captured Constantinople. The Ottoman’s weren’t a big fan of having a city named after a Byzantine Emperor and so pretty much immediately changed the name of the city to Istanbul, which is what we know it as today.

Because the Byzantine Empire had been declining the couple of centuries previous to Mehmet coming along, the Hagia Sophia had fallen into a little bit of disrepair. And I imagine sitting on an earthquake fault really didn’t help a whole lot with keeping a building in working order.

So because Mehmet decided that the Hagia Sophia would henceforth be a mosque, some restorations were needed, and it was an Architect that went by Sinan who had the luck to be put in charge of the restoration and conversion.

The Ottomans were pretty enamoured with the Hagia Sophia, especially its massive dome, and we can see how fascinated they were with the building by the influence it exerts on Ottoman architecture. You only need to have a look at the Blue Mosque, also in Istanbul and built in the 17th century, to see what I mean.

Because the Islamic culture isn’t a fan of iconography, when the conversion was under way, they set about covering up almost all the mosaics. Eventually the mosaics were permanently covered up with plaster. Here’s Gardner and Kleiner rephrasing what I just said:

After the Ottoman conquest the mosaics were hidden under yellow paint with the exception of the Theotokos [Virgin Mary with child] in the apse.

As is traditional in mosques, a mihrab was installed in the wall pointing in the direction of Mecca.

Each of the following Ottoman Emperors added their own thing and made their own mark on the Hagia Sophia, but probably the biggest addition was that of the four minarets. Similar to the minarets surrounding the Taj Mahal, these pillars aren’t just for show, they help to fortify the Hagia Sophia, providing extra buttressing against those pesky earthquakes. At over 60 metres tall, Gardner and Kleiner tells us that these

…four slender pencil-shaped minarets [are] among the tallest ever constructed.

Along with the minarets, over the course of the Ottoman Empire, a school, a fountain and a library were added, creating what is essentially a mosque complex.

Despite its mosque status, the Hagia Sophia wasn’t above adapting to a situation. Throughout the Balkan Wars in 1912, the building was used as a temporary hospital for those suffering from cholera.

But it wasn’t all about playing doctor. During the First World War, the Hagia Sophia was almost destroyed when the Turks decided that if they couldn’t have it than nobody could, and they would have preferred to explode the Hagia Sophia than to give it back to the Greeks.

Hagia Sophia, the Museum

When the Ottoman Empire fell, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk came out of the ruins as the leader of the Turkish Republic in 1923. His whole idea was to turn Turkey into a secular country, and as part of this he turned the Hagia Sophia into a museum in 1935. Robert Nelson, in the book Hagia Sophia: 1850-1950: Holy Wisdom Modern Monument, says that the Turkish Council of Ministers said:

Due to its historical significance, the conversion of the (Hagia Sophia) mosque, a unique architectural monument of art located in Istanbul, into a museum will please the entire Eastern world and its conversion to a museum will cause humanity to gain a new institution of knowledge.

As a museum, the Hagia Sophia was a symbol of Istanbul’s multicultural past. This was also an opportunity for those gorgeous mosaics to come back into the light.

The task fell to the American Archaeologist, Thomas Whittemore. As the founder of the Byzantine Institute of America, Whittemore asked for permission to uncover the mosaics in 1931. Permission was granted and the work on the mosaics began in 1932. It would take a good 15 years for the work to be completed.

Today, Mosque or Museum

Experiencing life as a church for 916 years and a mosque for 481 years, the Hagia Sophia’s role in politics and religion is a prickly topic, even today.

Living life as a museum hadn’t been too bad for the place, millions showed up every year to have a look around. So as 1985 rolled around, Hagia Sophia was among Turkey’s most-visited places and UNESCO added the Hagia Sophia to the World Heritage Site list.

Nationalist and religious groups have been calling for the Hagia Sophia to be converted back into a mosque. And after years of pressure, the current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan finally made it happen on the 10 July 2020 when he signed a decree after Turkey’s highest administrative court ruled that Atatürks 1934 conversion into a museum was illegal. With the Council of State putting it like this:

The cabinet decision in 1934 that ended its use as a mosque and defined it as a museum did not comply with laws.

To me, this is somewhat flimsy, since one could say that taking over the Byzantine Empire and converting a church into a mosque could be considered in bad taste, but who are we to judge Erdogan? Except that we are the public people and can judge political leaders all we like.

There have been some compromises in being turned back into a mosque. The Muslim faith still isn’t a fan of iconography, but as a museum all the mosaics have been uncovered and are on show. So how would it work as a mosque? Well, it’s quite simply really, the mosaics are covered up during prayer times. And the Hagia Sophia is still open to tourists outside of these prayer hours. Erdogan even said:

Like all our mosques, the doors of Hagia Sophia will be wide open to locals and foreigners, Muslims and non-Muslims.

While some were happy for the Hagia Sophia’s new job description, there were many that weren’t too pleased about the change. Some critics see Erdogan’s decision as an attempt to distract from how hard the coronavirus hit Turkey and its present economic state. The change has also been seen as an effort by Erdogan to deepen Turkey’s Muslim identity, and to make Turkey more in Erdogan’s vision.

Many years from now, this latest change will just be another in its long history. But Erdogan, who likes to think of himself as a ‘modern-day conqueror’ doesn’t apologise for anything.

But UNESCO has ‘deep regrets’ about the decision and called on the Turkish authorities to

Open a dialogue without delay.

And it’s not just UNESCO that has issues with how Erdogan has gone about it. The Eastern Orthodox Church has condemned the change, as I imagine many an Orthodox Greek has too. Greek’s Culture Minister, Lina Mendoni goes a step further to declare the move an

Open provocation to the civilised world.

She’s goes on to say

The nationalism displayed by President Erdogan…takes his country back six centuries.

And she says that the court ruling

Absolutely confirms that there is no independent justice [in Turkey].

The average tourist will be one of 3 million to take a look at Hagia Sophia each year. And it doesn’t matter what faith you are, you’re welcome to enter the Hagia Sophia Mosque outside of prayer hours. Although since the conversion back to a mosque, visitors should remove their shoes before stepping on the mosque carpets, and women should wear a head covering when they enter. But don’t worry if you don’t have one handy, because they’re freely available at the Mosque entrance.

You can of course take photos of the Hagia Sophia, but it is asked that any budding photographers avoid taking photos of those in prayer. There’s no entrance fee to visit the mosque so add it to that post pandemic travel list.

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