BBC: It tells of a city where empires, cultures and religions collided. A building that bears mosaics of Jesus and the Virgin Mary beside calligraphy reading “Allah” and “the Prophet Mohamed”. There is no greater symbol of the clash of civilisations here than Hagia Sophia.
For almost 1,000 years it stood as the most important Orthodox cathedral in the world, the religious heart of the largely Christian Byzantine empire whose capital was then called Constantinople.
But in 1453 the city fell to the Ottomans, Hagia Sophia became a mosque and Christianity began its slow demise here.
As Turkey grew out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, that decline accelerated. When Pope Francis arrives here this week, he will visit a country whose population has fallen from 20% Christian 100 years ago to around 0.2% today.
‘Huge brain drain’
“No country in the region – including Iran – is as homogenous in terms of Islam as Turkey,” says writer Cengiz Aktar. “It’s a mono-colour country – it’s a Muslim country.”
Categories: Accepting Islam, Answers to Anti-Islam, Bible, CHRISTIANITY, Church, Europe and Australia, Turkey