Santa Sophia and Blue Mosque Divinty under the Domes

A visit to the St. Sophia of Istanbul is like a visit to the nearly 2000 year old history of the city itself. The church is one the finest & most famous examples of Byzantine architecture in the world. It is located in the heart of old Istanbul, next to the also famous Blue Mosque, in the Sultan Ahmet Square of Istanbul. The above photograph above shows the actual view of the Hagia Sophia Church Museum (Aya Sofya Muzesi) as it appears in Istanbul today. Four minarets have been added to Hagia Sophia, after the Ottomans captured Constantinople at 1453 and converted the building from a church into the mosque. Today, Saint Sophia is neither a Church nor a Mosque, but a museum that is open to the public. The Hagia Sophia was built as a Constantinian Church by the emperor Justinian I, between A.D. 532 and 537 and at the time, it was estimated to be the largest covered space in the world. Its architects were Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles. It was built in only five years. On May 558, the dome of the church collapsed due to a December 557 earthquake, and though a new dome was quickly rebuilt afterwards.Hagia Sophia is a Greek phrase that means 'Holy Wisdom'. This ancient basilica was also called Saint Sophia. The Turks call it 'Aya Sofya Muzesi' (Hagia Sophia Museum) or in short, Ayasofya. After its construction ended, Hagia Sophia served as a Church for the following nine centuries, until  Constantinople was invaded and taken over by the Ottomans on the 29th of May, 1453. After this date, the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque.

Then in 1935, during the first years of the Republic of Turkey, the Mosque was secularized and made into a museum under the direction of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic.    It became a national museum, as it remains today.