Today, July 24, the first namaz is held in Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Istanbul. The Euronews channel is broadcasting live on Facebook the event that has shaken the world. The broadcast has already gathered over 1000 comments, both approving and extremely angry.

Also today, on Friday, in all churches and cathedrals in the Republic of Cyprus, by order of Archbishop Chrysostom II, at exactly 12 p.m., all the bells rang to inform the world of the “criminal conversion of Hagia Sophia to the mosque”. The bells sounded unstoppable for five minutes. It was at this time that the first Muslim “Friday prayer” began in Istanbul in Hagia Sophia.

This action by the Cypriot Church was a response to the “unacceptable and criminal conversion of Hagia Sophia Cathedral by the Turks into a mosque”. This was written in the address of the Archbishop.

Greeks and Greek Cypriots believe that the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia is the center of Greek Orthodox Christianity. The building was built by the Byzantines as an Orthodox Christian cathedral and was first converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest nine centuries later.
For the last 85 years the cathedral had the status of a museum and was part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is as a museum that Hagia Sofia was one of the most popular attractions not only in Istanbul, but also in the whole of Turkey.

So far, in order to completely transform the cathedral into a place of Muslim worship, the work on hiding Christian frescoes and unique floor ornaments in the building continues.

Although the Turkish side has promised to preserve free access to Hagia Sophia for tourists and to preserve all mosaics and frescoes in their original form, it is not yet clear how this will be combined with the namaz. Perhaps they will be obscured and hung only for a while. At least this method of “concealment” is what local Turkish media are writing about.