Athens, May 16, 2024
The Chora Monastery is home to perhaps the most famous icon of the Resurrection of Christ in the world. Photo: Wikipedia
The Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church gathered yesterday under the chairmanship of Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece.
Among the issues addressed by the gathered hierarchs was the recent conversion of the landmark Chora Monastery in Istanbul into a mosque.
Just months after the world-famous Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Istanbul was converted back into a mosque in the summer of 2020, Turkey’s President Erdoğan announced the same fate for the nearby Christ the Savior Chora Church.
The church is home to a fresco of the Resurrection of Christ known to all Orthodox Christians, as seen above.
The 6th-century monastery was initially converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in the 16th century. Beginning in 1945, it operated as a museum, until the decision of the Turkish Supreme Court in 2019 and Erdoğan’s decree in August 2020 that ordered it to be turned back into a mosque.
Since then, the church was undergoing restoration work in preparation for its reopening as a mosque, which occurred on May 6, drawing statements of protest from both Church and state officials from around the world.
And yesterday, the Greek Synod stated:
Оn the occasion of the recent conversion of the Catholicon Church of the Monastery of Chora into a Muslim mosque, the Permanent Holy Synod expressed its strong displeasure and concern over the decision of the government of Turkey to convert, after the Hagia Sophia of Nicaea, the Hagia Sophia of Trebizond, and the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople, this historical Christian monument from a World Cultural Heritage site into a symbol of power imposition and a point of division and fragmentation.
Read more about the Chora Monastery in the article, “The Church of Christ the Savior of Chora Monastery has Become a Mosque Again. Why Is it Important to All Christians?”
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