Hagia Sophia petition

[elizabethevangeline]

I thot many of you would be interested to know that there is an online petition collecting signatures for the HS to be restored to use as a church. Check it out here: http://www.hagiasophiablog.com/mainpage.html

And the Orthodixie blog mentioned that the Pool of Siloam has been found! Interesting stuff!

[Emmanuel-A]

I don't know what to think of this petition.

Of course Hagia Sophia is a great symbol, but it raises the broader questions of religious freedom in Turkey and of its adhesion to EU.

Why not petition directly for true religious freedom in Turkey ?

This petition brings this Hagia Sophia question as linked to the admittance of Turkey in Europe. I think that EU executives don't give much importance to this. All they see in Turkey is a big new market. There is a lobby that tries to deny the christian identity of Europe, and this is not difficult given how secularized Western Europe is.

[Dust and Ashes]

I signed it and passed it on and my priest signed it but I don't know that it will do any good. Turkey is a Muslim country so religious freedom is probably about #∞ on their top 100 list of priorities. :(

[elizabethevangeline]

I didn't know what to think either (I'm never quick to sign petitions), but thot I'd pass it on. I'm curious to hear responses. Does anyone recognize who is sponsoring the petition?

The blogger who mentioned it also wondered about the political angle saying...

"I wonder how much of the Europeans' squeamishness is really about race and geography, but it's a long way off, and I don't have any basis to understand why anybody would want to join the European Union, much less why anybody would care who else joins or doesn't."


Another point she made, the petition sight has some wonderful photos from the Hagia Sophia in their image gallery.

[Moros]

I would rather it stay as a museum, and use petitions to lobby for more active and extensive restoration. If it were reverted to a Christian church, Turks would just throw rocks and molotovs, break the windows, rob and loot it, etc just like they do to the Phanar and the remaining tiny little churches in Istanbul.

[Moros]

Speaking of the images on the site, this one is sadly prophetic, no?

http://www.hagiasophiablog.com/bilder/18.jpg

[elizabethevangeline]

I would rather it stay as a museum, and use petitions to lobby for more active and extensive restoration. If it were reverted to a Christian church, Turks would just throw rocks and molotovs, break the windows, rob and loot it, etc just like they do to the Phanar and the remaining tiny little churches in Istanbul.

Interesting point...one hard for some of us naive Americans to realize (meaning me :)) As is...it's protected and maintained.

[Rilian]

This petition brings this Hagia Sophia question as linked to the admittance of Turkey in Europe. I think that EU executives don't give much importance to this. All they see in Turkey is a big new market. There is a lobby that tries to deny the christian identity of Europe, and this is not difficult given how secularized Western Europe is.

It's interesting the loudest voices challenging the Turkish entrance in to the EU are coming from France as judged by some of the recent comments of Dominique de Villepin. The fact is economic and strategic interests will take precedence and the western powers will look after their own interests first. They are not interested in Christian minorities and were not even going back to the days when the Ottoman Empire first began to show signs of decay in the 18th century.

It's quite possible that Turkey will enter the EU without having to make any major concessions such as additional protections for religious minorities, recognition of Cyprus or admission of guilt regarding the massacres of Armenian and Syriac Christians in the early 20th century. Even Greece, the most likely traditionally to veto entrance to Turkey, has shown signs that it favors reconciliation. When Archbishop Christodoulos made remarks that he felt the Turks could not fit in to Turkey, the government distanced himself from those remarks and he later backtracked from them.

The petition itself is really kind of a futile effort. The idea of Christian worship in the Hagia Sophia died when Ataturk drove the Greek army off of Asia Minor in a humiliating defeat in the early 1920’s. The Turkish government and Turkish nationalists would never allow use of this building again as a Christian temple. The sad fact is within the foreseeable future there won’t be any Greeks there anyway left to worship. Last I heard the current number is that there are around 3,000 mostly elderly Greeks left in the city. The days of the Ecumenical Patriarchate there may very well be numbered as well.

[OrthodoxyUSA]

I signed it and passed it on and my priest signed it but I don't know that it will do any good. Turkey is a Muslim country so religious freedom is probably about #∞ on their top 100 list of priorities. :(

If Fr. Troy signed it... I will too.

Forgive me....:liturgy:

[Moros]

The idea of Christian worship in the Hagia Sophia died when Ataturk drove the Greek army off of Asia Minor in a humiliating defeat in the early 1920’s.

I think it died when Mehmed II turned it into the imperial mosque in the late 1400's. ;)