Icons and mosaic panels are scattered in the walls and ceiling of Hagia Sophia, most of which carry Christian symbols such as the image of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary.
On Friday,
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...signed a decree to open the historic Hagia Sophia landmark to worship as a mosque as of July 24.
He published on his official Twitter account, a picture of the presidential decree that transforms the Department of Teacher Affairs, located in Istanbul, into the presidency of
This came after the
This decision has drawn widespread criticism from Russia, Greece, the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
, the United States and UNESCO.
The Hagia Sophia was built in 537 AD as the largest church in the Byzantine Empire, and after the conquest of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) by the Ottoman Empire in 1453, it was converted into a mosque, and in 1934 the
