Another iconic Byzantine-era cathedral in Istanbul is set for reconversion into a mosque, with the Islamist Erdogan administration now casting its sights on the Chora Church, nearly four years after the reconversion of the Hagia Sophia, the greatest basilica of eastern Christendom.
The plan was reported by the state-run Anadolu news agency this past week.
Chora, known as Kariye in Turkish, had operated as a museum for 79 years, similar to the Hagia Sophia.
The Chora Church, originally dating back to the 6th century, hosts several incomparable ecclesiastical mosaics and frescoes.
The interior is covered with scenes from the Bible and images of Christ’s life and the lives of the saints.
Greece’s president of the republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, recently called the decision to convert the cathedral in the Chora mosque as an “act of symbolic violence dictated by political arrogance … cultural insecurity and religious intolerance, which condemns a treasure trove of Christian art and cultural nobility to obscurity.”
The reaction by the Greek president drew a reaction by Turkey’s foreign ministry.
At the same time, official Greece last month opened the Yeni Mosque in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, for a one-time prayer during the Muslim Eid al-Fitr religious holiday, the end of Ramadan, 102 years after it last functioned as a house of worship.
The two-storey Yeni Mosque, designed by Italian architect Vitaliano Poselli in 1902, was shut down in 1922 one year before the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. It initially housed Thessaloniki’s Archaeological Museum and today is an exhibition center.
