After Hagia Sophia, Turkey’s historic Chora church converted into mosque

Team Udayavani, Aug 22, 2020, 6:10 PM IST

Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan has reconverted the historic Chora church into a mosque. The move comes a month after Hagia Sophia was turned from a church into a mosque.

According to ZeeNews, The mediaeval Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora, built near the ancient city walls of Constantinople, contains 14th century Byzantine mosaics and frescoes showing scenes from biblical stories.

It was originally converted into the Kariye Mosque half a century after the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks. It became the Kariye Museum after World War II as Turkey pushed ahead with the creation of a more secular new republic out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.

A group of American art historians then helped restore the original church’s mosaics and opened them up for public display in 1958.