Worship Weblog

Smithsonian magazine on the preservation of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul

Posted by cicw

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

I clipped this article a few months ago from Smithsonian magazine on the struggle to preserve the Hagia Sophia, the 1,500-year-old worship space in Istanbul. The Hagia Sophia was the place of which, according to legend, Prince Vladmir’s representatives said after attending an Eastern Orthodox worship service, “We did not know whether we were in heaven or on earth.”

Visible for miles across the Sea of Marmara, Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, with its giant buttresses and soaring minarets, symbolizes a cultural collision of epic proportions. (The name translates from the Greek as “Sacred Wisdom.”) The structure stands not only as a magnificent architectural treasure but also as a complex accretion of myth, symbol and history. The landmark entwines the legacies of medieval Christianity, the Ottoman Empire, resurgent Islam and modern secular Turkey in a kind of Gordian knot, confounding preservationists who want to save it from decay and restore its former glory.

continued…

Also see 360-degree panaromas of the Hagia Sophia from Smithsonian

Tags: architecture, culture, eorthodoxy, HagiaSophia, history, space, world