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Frescoes Of The Last Judgment And Below The Patriarchs And Bishops, Church Of The Holy Saviour In Chora; Istanbul, Turkey. Peter Langer/Design Pics via ZUMA Wire Now that Turkey has turned Hagia Sophia in Istanbul back into a mosque, concern is rising that the same fate awaits another Orthodox church there with some of the most beautiful mosaics and frescos in the Christian world. The interior of Holy Saviour in Chora, a medieval Byzantine church in western Istanbul that is now a museum, is covered with Bible scenes and portraits of Jesus and the saints dating back to the...

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday laid the foundation stone for the first new church in Turkey since it became a modern republic in 1923. The church in the Istanbul suburb of Yesilkoy will serve the 17,000-strong Syriac Christian community, which is also paying for the new building. "It is the Turkish republic's duty to meet the need for space to worship for the Syriac community, who are the ancient children of this geography," Erdogan said during the stone-laying ceremony. Syriac Christians are part of the eastern Christian tradition and pray in Aramaic, which Jesus is believed to have spoken....