Pope Francis said he was “very upset” by Turkey’s decision to convert the Byzantine Hagia Sophia monument into a mosque.“My thoughts are with Istanbul. I think of Hagia Sophia. I am very distressed, “said the pontiff during the Vatican’s first reaction to a decision which has drawn international criticism.
The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reacted to the decision on Friday from various countries on Saturday without commenting.
A magnet for tourists from around the world, Hagia Sophia was first built as a cathedral in the Byzantine Christian Empire, but was transformed into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced Friday that Muslim prayers will begin on July 24 at the Unesco World Heritage site.In the past, he repeatedly asked for the building to be redesignated as a mosque, and in 2018, he recited a verse from the Koran in Hagia Sophia.
Erdoğan’s announcement came after a court quashed a cabinet decision of 1934 under the leadership of Turkish secularization founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to preserve the church turned into a mosque as a museum .
