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Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Hagia Sophia Pictures

Imagine a church and Mosque combined into one! Well, that is what Hagia Sophia (a churchmosque) is all about. Well, to be precise it was a church, then a mosque, and has now been made into a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. It is magnanimous of the Turkish people and government to have stopped it from being a mosque, considering that it was originally a church. By making it a museum they are showing their sense of fairness as the mosque had been forcibly made in the premises of the church.

It was a church from 360 B.C. to 1453, and became a mosque from 1453 until 1931. In 1453 Sultan Mehmed laid siege to Constantinople, "driven in part by a desire to convert the city to Islam."

Hagia Sophia has a huge dome, typycally Byzantine Christian architecture and was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years. As a mosque it was the principal mosque of Istanbul for almost 500 years.
Today it is a tourist spot. This is a photo of the exterior of the Hagia Sophia.
hagia sophia exterior

A shot of the interior, the main hall. There was some restoration work going on but here you can see the symbols of both Christianity and Islam. A painting of Christ at the top of the image and an Islamic symbol to the right of the picture.
church mosque interior


Here is a photograph of the elaborately carved and painted interiors. Paintings of Christ are visible.
church mosque paintings

Another image of the inside of the domes and a small image of Jesus Christ.
church mosque designs

Related Images: The Blue Mosque at Istanbul
There are also a lot of pictures of the Sistine Chapel  in Vatican City in Rome on this website.

Or more related images: Church Silhouettes or Christmas Tree Silhouette

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