After Hagia Sophia, Turkey converts a second ancient Byzantine church into a mosque

[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnISTANBUL (RNS) — Hundreds of worshippers filled the narrow streets of Istanbul’s Fatih district on Friday to hear the sounds of Friday prayers ringing out from the newly inaugurated Kariye Mosque. Once known as the Chora Church, the site spent the last 79 years as a museum. But it is now the latest structure to be converted back into a mosque by the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, following the conversion of Hagia Sophia in 2020. While viewed as a triumph by many Turkish Muslims, the Greek Orthodox Church has decried it as an “ill-advised decision” that “makes a mockery of the Turkish government’s commitment to religious tolerance and religious freedom.”
Chora’s conversion was announced shortly after Hagia Sophia’s, but its opening for prayer was delayed by years of restoration work. 
The showing for the first Friday prayers at Kariye was relatively quiet compared to Hagia Sophia, which drew hundreds of thousands who filled the streets with prayer rugs for blocks and blocks away from the building. By contrast, the crowd on Friday was relatively average for a mosque in one of Istanbul’s more religiously conservative neighborhoods, where Friday worshippers frequently spill out onto the streets.
Both the Chora Church and Hagia Sophia are 4th-century Byzantine constructions. They spent nearly a millennium as Christian holy sites before being converted to mosques b …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]