Turkey Converts Chora Church Into Mosque
by Jules Gomes, Church Militant:
Hagia Sophia sets precedent for Muslim capture of churches.
Turkey has issued a presidential decree ordering the conversion of the nation’s best-known Byzantine monastic church into a mosque.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued the executive order Thursday sealing the fate of the Church of the Holy Savior in Chora, Istanbul, a month after Turkey’s top court delivered a unanimous verdict declaring the basilica of Hagia Sophia a mosque.
The decree, published in the National Gazette, transfers “the administration of the Kariye Mosque [Chora Church] to the Directorate of Religious Affairs [Diyanet].”
In accordance with Article 35 of law No. 633 on the Presidency of Religious Affairs it orders the opening of the “mosque for [Islamic] worship.”
Erdoğan’s diktat overturns an earlier ruling of the Council of Ministers from April 23, 1945, which had directed the ancient monastic church to be used as a museum and warehouse.
The executive order formally implements the change in the church’s status, which was passed in Dec. 2019 by a decision of Turkey’s Council of State.
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