Last month, early July 2013, the believers celebrated the begging of the Ramazan in a Byzantine church which was up to now a cultural monument open to the visitors. Hagia Sophia in Trebizond / Trabzon is the third Byzantine church dedicated to God’s Holy Wisdom which was converted into a mosque within the last decade.
The first was Haghia Sophia in Bisye / Vize (a small town in European Turkey). The lovely building of the late 9th c. is considered as extremely important for the development of architecture as well as for the history of Eastern Thrace during the Middle Byzantine period.
Another Haghia Sophia followed. This is the impressive, but ruined since 1921, main church of Byzantine Nikaia / Iznik (a town near Bursa) which was rebuilt and converted into a mosque – in the same way as the Ottomans treaded the Christian monuments.
Trebizond’s Haghia Sophia, decorated with frescos of extreme beauty (13th c. – early Palaiologan Renaissance) is the third victim.
What is going on in Erdogan’s era?
In the Attached Files you will find two articles published in The Economist: June 8th-14th (and a painting of Prime Minister Erdogan as a sultan on the cover) and July 27th – August 2nd 2013 (‘Erasing the Christian past’).
