Eric Demay

We just came back from 3 weeks of backpacking through Turkey. I shot a few thousand pictures, I just couldn’t help myself. It felt good to have the Nikon at hand at all times, something I hadn’t done in awhile, especially at home in Montreal where the everyday gets ahold of me and I become blind, lazy blind; not to mention the camera phone in the backpocket which acts as a mediocre safety cushion if something does come up.

But then, travelling to the unknown, seeing for the first time, gazing at sights, yearning to memorize and somehow capture the tableau along with the intrinsic excitement of discovery, the camera becomes a close travelling companion with which you converse endlessly. And so, you can expect doses of Turkish [photographic] delight around here for the next little while.

Between the domes of Aya Sofya, at the heart of the historical Istanbul in Sultanahmet square, lies its equally renown neighbour the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque).

To me, Aya Sofya (Hagia Sophia) remains today the most impressive yet intriguing building of the historic Istanbul.

Established for centuries as the Greek Patriarchal cathedral of Constantinople (Greek Orthodox Christians, 562–1204, 1261–1453), it also briefly served as a Roman Catholic cathedral for 57 years (1204-1261), and was later converted to a mosque when the Ottoman conquered the city (and Byzantine empire) in 1453.

That year, Sultan Mehmed II ordered the conversation of the church, stripping it of its Christian attributes (furniture, bells, altar), plastering the mosaics, and bringing in the Islamic mosque kit de rigueur: minbar, mihrab and 4 large minarets cornering the edifice. It lived as such until the 1930’s, holding the title of Istanbul’s number-one mosque for many centuries, and becoming an architectural model and inspiration for half a dozen of other great mosque constructions in the city—yes, including the neighbouring famous Blue Mosque. In 1931, it was secularized and converted to a museum.

How ironic! Now living in an era when religious beliefs often tend to negate negotiations, where creeds and traditions are fought for, I find this tolerance of the site’s history quite fascinating.

The secularization and transmutation of a religious building for another use isn’t an uncommon sight anymore, churches are now being flipped into apartment buildings without much protest.

But the transfer and appropriation of a religious building, built in ecclesiastical customs, as a sacred place of worship for christians, to another religious group and to become their place of worship, suddenly fulfilling different spiritual functions altogether and become sacred to their own—not to mention the city’s principal edifice of this type—is quite strange and even unorthodox to many (no pun intended).

I was discussing this with a [Turkish] friend one evening in Istanbul.

He suggested: “Oh well, you know how it was: Constantinople was conquered, the Ottomans came in, and they were not very tolerant. Christians were slayed, and they took control what was left. They didn’t leave anything untouched.” To which I replied: “Well no, actually, quite the opposite: they must have been quite tolerant to that matter to accept the conversion in the first place!”

Anyways, the best is, abiding to this same sagacious rationale of architectural immunity, they even kept the name of the building throughout the years, no matter church or mosque: Ἁγία Σοφία, from the Greek meaning “Holy Wisdom”.

Wise, indeed.