'World’s Finest Byzantine Icons At Risk After Erdogan Court Win'

Since a friend first took me to the Chorea Church/Museum I visit it every time I visit Constantinople. I stay next door, in the very charming Kuriye Hotel, and love to walk from there through the working class Fatih district. There I stumble across beautiful but largely forgotten mosques, completely forgotten churches and Roman pillars which stand ignored in busy streets. This is how travel should be, free of tourist kitsch, free of people from Idaho. 

I didn't know until I read a post on the blog of a Greek-American that the Chorea mosaics were the best Byzantine mosaics in the world. Nor did I know that Turkey’s highest administrative court ruled last month that the 1945 cabinet decision that made the mosque into a museum was unlawful because a mosque “cannot be used except for its essential function”. President Erdogan is expected to implement the court’s decision.

Will the Hagia Sofia be next?

In the nineteenth century Russians expected one day that High Mass would be celebrated in the Hagia Sofia. After the Ottoman Empire lost the First Balkan War it seemed possible one day, but it never happened. Now it is easy to imagine that it might become a mosque again.

The old landmarks are disappearing, or perhaps I should say they are re-emerging..