The State Council of Turkey allowed to turn the Cathedral of St. Sofia into a mosque

The State Council of Turkey - the Supreme Administrative Court of the Republic - annulled the government’s decision of 1934 on the transformation of St. Sophia Cathedral into a museum, the Anadola agency reports . Until 1934, this building was used as a mosque. It was closed by the founder of the modern Turkish state Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The modern building of the Cathedral of St. Sophia was built by 537. The cathedral for more than a thousand years was the largest Christian temple in the world. In 1453, after the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, it was transformed into a mosque. In the first Friday prayer on June 1, 1453, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II participated, which captured the city.

In 1935, Ataturk, who built a secular state, turned the mosque into a museum. The Islamist opposition has always required the return of the building of cult status. Representatives of the Orthodox churches and Greece opposed.

The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan previously stated that he was waiting for a decision of the State Council on the possibility of changing the status of the cathedral and plans to act depending on it.