Hagia Sophia
Mosque and former church in Istanbul
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| 2024 | The upper floor of Hagia Sophia begins to serve as a museum. |
| January 15 2024 | Hagia Sophia began charging an entrance fee for foreign nationals after previously being free to enter. |
| April 2022 | The Imperial Gate of Hagia Sophia was vandalized by unknown assailant(s), damaging this historically significant entrance that was traditionally used exclusively by the Byzantine Emperor and his personal entourage. |
| July 2021 | UNESCO expressed 'grave concern' and requested an updated conservation report about Hagia Sophia, raising potential concerns about its World Heritage status. |
| November 7 2020 | Gli, a famous cat of Hagia Sophia, was buried in the garden. |
| July 24 2020 | Hagia Sophia officially opened for Friday prayers, coinciding with the 97th anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne. Erdoğan and government ministers attended, with mosaics of the Virgin and Child covered by white drapes. |
| July 22 2020 | A turquoise-colored carpet was laid in preparation for Muslim worshippers in Hagia Sophia. |
| July 17 2020 | Erdoğan announced the first prayers would accommodate between 1,000-1,500 worshippers, asserting Turkey's sovereign power over the site. |
| July 10 2020 | The Council of State annulled the 1935 decision to transform Hagia Sophia into a museum, officially decreeing it could only be used as a mosque. |
| May 2020 | Turkey celebrated the 567th anniversary of the Conquest of Constantinople with Islamic prayers and Quran passages in Hagia Sophia, drawing condemnation from Greece. |
| 2019 | Erdoğan's office took over administration of the nearby Topkapı Palace Museum from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism via presidential decree. |
| March 2019 | Erdoğan publicly stated his intention to change Hagia Sophia's status from a museum to a mosque, calling its previous museum designation a 'very big mistake'. |
| March 31 2018 | Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recited the first verse of the Quran in Hagia Sophia, dedicating the prayer to the 'souls of all who left us this work as inheritance', signaling a political movement to restore the building's mosque status. |
| June 21 2017 | The Directorate of Religious Affairs organized a special live-broadcast program including Quran recitation and prayers to mark Laylat al-Qadr. |
| May 13 2017 | A large group organized by the Anatolia Youth Association gathered and prayed morning prayer, calling for the re-conversion of the museum into a mosque. |
| October 2016 | Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs appointed Önder Soy as the first designated imam to the Hagia Sophia mosque in 81 years. |
| July 1 2016 | Muslim prayers were held in the Hagia Sophia for the first time in 85 years. |
| November 2013 | Turkey's deputy prime minister Bülent Arınç began demanding the Hagia Sophia be converted back into a mosque. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article Hagia Sophia, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.