Don’t worry, nothing will be done about it.
PING
Surprise!
(Not. Decision was never in doubt.).
Turks suck.
Ok Russia, you know what to do.
Everyone knows that Hagia Sofia was originally built as a mosque during the reign of Islamic ruler Justinian. And Al Quds was muslim long before the Jews came and renamed it Jerusalem. /s
I know it was the time of “The Great Game”, but maybe Britain should have let Russia have at it with the Ottomans during the Crimean War.
From Gibbons Decline And Fall, after describing the Muslim taking of Hagia Sophia:
At the same hour a similar rapine was exercised in all the churches and monasteries, in all the palaces and habitations, of the capital; nor could any place, however sacred or sequestered, protect the persons or the property of the Greeks. Above sixty thousand of this devoted people were transported from the city to the camp and fleet, exchanged or sold according to the caprice or interest of their masters, and dispersed in remote servitude through the provinces of the Ottoman empire.
Time to retake Constantinople.
It happened before under the Ottoman Empire.
Originally a Catholic Church.
Elections matter!
(So do wars).
I am not surprised. When I visited a few years ago, there were Imams reading prayers in the Museum and it was clear that people in power wanted to convert it to a Mosque.
After the end of WW1, Turkey tried hard to become secular and built many protections into its Constitution. Their leaders wanted to modernize and become part of “Europe.” Times have changed and Muslim leaders have gotten much more militant and “in your face.” Still a lot of the people I met in Turkey just wanted to get along and live a life in peace.