![]() ![]() What you see when you visit Hagia Sophia today depends on what you see. The beauty of the architecture and its decoration was treasured by the Sultans, who did their best to protect what they had inherited from the past, even though they had utterly destroyed Byzantium in 1453 and replaced it with a new Islamic Empire. This seems inconceivable today, but it is true. For 300 years after the conquest the mosaics of Hagia Sophia were uncovered, millions of Muslims worshiped under them, undisturbed. From the beginning the Ottomans understood that they were custodians of its Christian past and had a responsibility to preserve it, even as they used it for their own faith. The modifications to Hagia Sophia to adapt it for Muslim worship have never fit the building and feel awkward and unnatural. There are more videos on this page.Įverybody understands that Hagia Sophia essential identity is Christian, even Muslims. This destroyed most of the mosaics that were still in Hagia Sophia in 1845, there's more on that below. The oil paint cut off the walls and vaults so they could no longer breathe and water was trapped behind it. You can see the damage the 1845 Fossati oil-painting is still doing to the vaults, which is pealing away and falling in strips. You can see they were repainting the north typanium inside the nave. Much of the inside is obscured with scaffolding and there are partitions cutting off a great part of the church. Here is a recent YouTube video from April 2019 that shows the exterior and interior of Hagia Sophia. It has always functioned as a church and was never converted into a mosque. There is a wonderful 10th century Byzantine church there that might date from the reign of John I Tzimiskes, an Armenian emperor. It was great to see the recent reports of the visit of the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, to Hagia Sophia and the possibility the re-opening of the Theological School of Halki will happen soon. It would be great if this means we can rest assured that it will continue as a museum and the agitation by and demonstrations fundamentalists will stop. I have no idea how independent the Turkish courts are from the President, I assume not much, so this decision must reflect the President's direction on the future of Hagia Sophia. However, just a few months previously, in April, the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, felt compelled to recite Muslim prayers and praise Mehmet Fatih in Hagia Sophia. ![]() In September 2018 Turkish courts finally forbade the re-conversion of Hagia Sophia to a mosque. Erdogan wants to recite the Islamic prayer of conversion himself in the same spot as Mehmet II in 1453. Now they are claiming the 1934 decree on the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a museum bearing Kemal Ataturk’s signature was forged! God save us from this newest insanity. NO TOURISM TO TURKEY - A BREAK IN DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS? Time to organize on social media. IT HAS BEEN DONE - HAGIA SOPHIA IS A MOSQUE! What will the world do? What will the Orthodox world do? Will the Evangelicals in the USA join a boycott? This was an intentional insult to ALL Christians, Orthodox, Protestant and Catholics. And to the reader, thank you for reading this whole thing, and please consider signing to make this dream a reality.2020 - HAGIA SOPHIA TODAY IN GREAT DANGER! ![]() It's already made, and I'm sure my suggestions won't be that hard to add. So Mojang, if you're reading this, please keep this feature in the game. I think the Minecraft community would really benefit from this feature as it gives players much more to do in the game and offers infinite possibilities. This way, people who want to play with or without it are both satisfied. There is no reason not to keep this amazing feature in the game one way or another and the perfect solution is for it to be an optional feature that is balanced in the same way cheats are. It would function similar to the cheats setting in that enabling it would deactivate achievements, but otherwise, things would remain the same so all types of dimensions can be explored in survival. Add "Infinite Dimensions" as a setting in world creation. Many dimensions are clearly unbalanced as they contain large amounts of valuable resources but there is a simple solution. I'm petitioning for Infinite Dimensions to be implemented in to future versions of Minecraft. This is a really interesting change that opens up many more possibilities and adds many more places to explore. The Infinite Dimensions snapshot allowed book and quills to be thrown into a Nether Portal to change it to a portal to a randomized dimension. Though it was intended as a prank, it's a great feature that many want to remain in the game. The Infinite Dimensions snapshot for Minecraft was added as an April Fool's joke on April 1st 2020. ![]()
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