August 2020

A peculiar summer, as the Coronavirus pandemic drags on. I suppose many people, like me, thought that things would improve with time, but instead they seem to be getting worse, with fears of a so-called second wave growing apace. My home state of Victoria, Australia, has made it to the BBC World News on the day that I write, because of a sudden and very worrying spike in new infections, and 13 deaths. And Australia in general had been doing quite well until very recently. It is a very sad situation, made worse by determination in some quarters, such as the Murdoch press, to politicise not only the issue but the handling of it.

It seems I am always outraged by something, with this tendency being exacerbated by age. I have been very exercised by the conversion of Aghia Sophia into a mosque: more politics. I wrote about this, but the piece has not seen the light of day, so I will post it here. I’ve called it Change in the City.

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It’s on again; well, the centuries-old conflict between Greece and Turkey has never really been off. Greece still bears the scars of 400 years of occupation by the Ottoman Turks, and Turkey seems to consider, after a fashion, that it still has sovereign rights over Greece: the Turkish air force invades Greek air space every other day, and there are often disputes over territorial waters and tiny islands. It has to be admitted, however, that politicians in both countries often find this history of tension useful as a distraction device when matters on their respective domestic scenes are not going well.

The latest round in this rumbling hostility concerns the centre of the Orthodox world, the cathedral of Aghia Sophia, the Holy Wisdom, which is the heart of what Greeks always refer to as The City. The building has had a long and chequered history, having been both an Orthodox and Catholic cathedral, a mosque, and, since 1935, a museum. The City has had a varied history, too: before Istanbul, it was called Constantinople, and Byzantium, founded by Greeks from Megara in 657 BC, preceded both these incarnations. Aghia Sophia was completed in 537 AD, during the reign of the Emperor Justinian who, upon seeing the finished building with its marvel of a dome, is supposed to have cried, ‘Ho, Solomon, I have outdone thee!’

The City remained Greek until May the 29^th, 1453, the occasion of the Ottoman conquest, a Tuesday, which remains a day of ill-omen in the Greek world. On that fateful day Turkish troops poured into Aghia Sophia, and the priests, according to legend, seized the holy vessels and melted into the walls of the sanctuary, there to wait until the mighty edifice was Christian once more. It had been the centre of Orthodoxy, and world’s largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years.

These days Aghia Sophia is a tourist attraction, with an estimated 3.7 million people visiting it last year. People visit for various reasons: for many it is a place of pilgrimage, but it also fascinates architects and engineers, is obviously steeped in history, and contains frescoes and mosaics of great significance. I have seen it twice, but find it difficult to describe: almost overwhelming majesty comes close, perhaps. On a practical level, it is a substantial aid to the Turkish economy.

But now President Erdogan, a pious Muslim, plans to turn this hugely significant place back into a mosque. The matter was put to a Turkish court, which has recently ruled that the decision to turn the cathedral into a museum in 1935 was illegal. (It is strange to think of Ataturk, founder of modern secular Turkey, having his decision overturned in this way.)  Greece has naturally objected very strongly to Erdogan’s proposal, and so has the USA. Patriarch Bartholomew, living in his little Greek enclave in Turkey, has stated that Aghia Sophia’s status should not be changed, as it now belongs to the whole world. 

Erdogan is in fact on a collision course with UNESCO, which declared the former cathedral a World Heritage site in 1985, and is bound to resist any threatened change to its status. But of course Erdogan is not the only world leader to ignore directions by one or other of the United Nations’ branches, and it seems only too obvious that the idea of a change to a mosque has the advantage of rallying Erdogan’s supporters (mass prayers take place outside Aghia Sophia at least once a year), and distracting attention from the ravages of the coronavirus and the poor shape of the economy. Not to mention the number of political prisoners that are languishing in gaol.

In a folk-song called The Last Mass in Santa Sophia, which may have its origins deep in the Byzantine era, the liturgy is interrupted by the Archangel who declares that it is the will of God that the City fall to the Turks. But a message is to be sent to the West, asking for three ships to come to rescue the Cross, the Holy Bible, and the Altar. The All-Holy One, Our Lady, is distressed, and the icons are weeping. It is then that the promise is made: Hush, Lady, do not weep so profusely; after years and after centuries they will be yours again.

The long wait continues.

And Muslim prayers have already been said in Aghia Sophia.