Top Court Declares Hagia Sophia a Mosque
by Jules Gomes, Church Militant:
In a historic verdict, Turkey’s top court has returned the world’s greatest Byzantine basilica to its previous status as a mosque after it abolished President Atatürk’s 1934 decision to turn Hagia Sophia into a museum.
Turkey’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, reached a unanimous verdict declaring that president Kemal Atatürk’s cabinet had no right to turn Hagia Sophia into a museum as part of his secularist reforms and has rendered the decision unlawful.
The court is expected to deliver its judgment Friday, but Turkish journalist Mehmet Ardıç, a close advisor of the current radical Islamic president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, broke the news Wednesday. “The countdown has begun,” he tweeted.
Numan Kurtulmuş, deputy chairman of Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), told Turkish media that on July 15, or even earlier, Hagia Sophia will be opened as a mosque “for prayer.” The ruling was also confirmed by the popular Turkish history Twitter channel Ottoman Records.
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