Leave the Hagia Sophia Alone!

 In November 2012, my wife and I visited Hagia Sophia, the great former Eastern Orthodox basilica. For me, it was an emotional pilgrimage. I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 2007, and Hagia Sophia is to us what St. Peter’s is to Roman Catholics, and to a far lesser degree I suppose, what Mecca is to Muslims.

But Hagia Sophia, completed in 537 and in continuous use ever since, isn’t just important to Eastern Christians. The cathedral has tremendous general historical significance for Christians and Muslims alike. It was instrumental in sparking the Christianization of the Slavic East. In 987, observers sent by Prince (St.) Vladimir the Great of Kiev to observe Eastern Christian religious practice reported ecstatically to him of attending a Great Liturgy at Hagia Sophia: “We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth nor such beauty,” a report that helped persuade the prince to be baptized, resulting in mass conversions and the eventual emergence of the Russian Orthodox Church.