AP reports on the controversial move by Turkey’s President to change the status of a UNESCO World Heritage site:
The president of Turkey on Friday formally reconverted Istanbul’s sixth-century Hagia Sophia into a mosque and declared it open for Muslim worship….
The decision sparked deep dismay among Orthodox Christians. Originally a cathedral, Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque after Istanbul’s conquest by the Ottoman Empire but had been a museum for the last 86 years, drawing millions of tourists annually…..
Turkey’s high administrative court threw its weight behind a petition brought by a religious group and annulled the 1934 Cabinet decision that turned the site into a museum. Within hours, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a decree handing over Hagia Sophia to Turkey’s Religious Affairs Presidency.