Muslims’ first prayer service in former Catholic basilica explicitly rejects Christianity by JEANNE SMITS for Life Site News
‘It is not fitting for the Most Merciful to have a son.’
Headed by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Muslims entered the Basilica of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul on July 24 for the first Islamic Friday prayers since the Byzantine basilica was turned into a museum 86 years ago. “Ayasofya,” as it is known in Turkish, was formerly a Christian basilica, with important parts of the building dating back to the 6th century. They entered as conquerors: the “sword of conquest” played an important and visible role in a ceremony, and the verses of the Quran chosen for the event were clearly anti-Christian.
The lengthy Islamic occupation of Hagia Sophia began violently on the day of the capture of Constantinople in 1453 by Islamic invaders, who immediately turned it into a mosque. Holy Wisdom has now “regained” that status, the mainstream press reports, despite its true status as a church, one of the most venerable in Christendom, where the Triune God was adored and the Divine Liturgy offered for many centuries.
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Hagia Sophia was “recaptured” last Friday by a crowd of dignitaries, led by Erdoğan, who is himself capable of reciting the Quran in Arabic psalmody, and who did so last Friday, chanting the first surah. Thousands of faithful followed and joined the prayers from around the building, in five separate zones, three for men, two for women.
The event took place only two weeks after the Turkish Council of State ruled that the 1934 decree that turned Hagia Sophia into a mosque (under the secularist and masonic rule of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk) was illegal because the building was the property of the Sultan Mehmet Han Foundation.
President Erdoğan, of the ruling Islamist party, immediately decided to go ahead and organize prayers as soon as possible.
The event was marked by a strong anti-Christian sentiment. Imam Ali Erbaş, head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet), went up to the midram to give his sermon with the “sword of conquest” in his hand: a Turkish scimitar whose blade was inscribed with the “conquest surah.”
