“We hope that our initiatives will be welcomed by the international community, which will increase its pressure on the Turkish political leadership to reconsider its decision to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque. “Knowing the sensitivity you show for the rule of law where land, we expect to find you an ardent and practical supporter in this effort.” The above is emphasized by the Secretary General of the Interparliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy (DSO), Dr. Maximos Harakopoulos, in a letter delivered to Pope Francis.
The letter of Maximos Harakopoulos, who attended the Presidential Palace during the official reception of the Primate of the Roman Catholic Church, accompanies the volume “The temples of God of Wisdom around the world”, published by the DSO, and was delivered according to its protocol Vatican, at the Apostolic Nunciature in Athens.
The head of DSO, in his letter notes, among other things, that “the volume displays 37 historical temples dedicated to the Wisdom of God, where the perishable praises the incorruptible and where the work praises the Word, especially in countries that experienced the Byzantine and the post-Byzantine tradition, integrated and adapted to the particular cultural characteristics of each region and each people. Among them, as a crown and an insurmountable human creation, stands the beautiful temple, which for centuries was the symbol of the greatness and spirituality of the Byzantine Empire: the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, which was inaugurated in 537 AD. by the emperor Justinian, who conceived and realized this miracle of human potential.
The Great Church, this lighthouse of Orthodoxy, after the Fall of the City in 1453 and the end of the Byzantine Empire, was converted into a mosque. Its Christian decoration, covered with coatings, was forgotten until 1934, when it was turned into a museum as part of the secularization of the Turkish state. Shortly afterwards, scientists from the international community unearthed and preserved the mosquitoes injured due to lack of care and visitors from all over the world flocked to the monument again to see and admire the living miracle of the Byzantine spirit. Later, Hagia Sophia was included in the official list of protected monuments of the UNESCO world cultural heritage “.
Maximos Harakopoulos concludes by emphasizing that “unfortunately in July 2020, this unique monument, the Hagia Sophia of the Christian world, became a mosque again with an arbitrary decision that ignores the history of the monument and is indifferent to international institutions and global reactions. “As an Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy, from the very beginning we sought with various interventions to highlight the problem in the international community, not allowing it to be forgotten and finally to consolidate this unacceptable act that is not in line with the principles and values ​​of our culture.”
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