Day 6 Revisit Part 3 - Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sopia

Day Six Revisit Part 3 - Friday June 11 - Hagia Sopia

Next stop, the Hagia Sophia. This is directly across from the Blue Mosque. This was originally a Christian (Orthodox) church, built in 537. It is know for its massive dome which is said to have "changed the history of architecture." In 1453 Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and the building was converted to a mosque. In 1935 it was converted into a museum by the Republic of Turkey.

At Entrance of Hagia Sopia

Pastor Wayne did some teaching on the grounds of the Hagia Sophia. In  approximately 500 AD Emperor Justinian the Great made three important edicts/decisions:

1. He codified the various laws into a law code, which is still the basis for many laws today (The Code of Justinian, or Corpus Juris Civilis.)
2. He struggled with the "nature of humans" - what is humanity? This formed the basis for the duality of humans: born with a sin nature but able to accept Christ and have the Holy Spirit indwell us.
3. What is the nature of Jesus? This formed the basis of the duality of Jesus: fully God and fully human.

Angel at Corner of Dome

We toured Hagia Sophia. An interesting item is that some of the Christian artifacts had been plastered over when it was turned into a mosque, such as the angels at the corners of the main dome. This is because the Muslims think of these as icons and that is forbidden in their religion. This had the interesting effect of preserving many of these items. Since being converted to a museum, some of them have been uncovered.


We had some free time to wander on our own, and then met up to walk to lunch. Lunch was at a cafe (the Can Restaurant) a few blocks from Hagia Sophia.

Prev: Day 6 Part 2 <=> Next: Day 6 Part 4
Dale's Pics for Day 6 - Hagia Sopia: here