Friday Prayer in Hagia Sophia Mosque (Istanbul, Turkey)

Hagia Sophia, officially known as the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, is a historic place of worship in Istanbul. Designed by the Greek mathematicians and architects Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles, it was completed in 537 CE as the main cathedral of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. For centuries, it served as the largest church in the Byzantine world and a major center of the Eastern Orthodox Church, except during the Latin Empire (1204–1261), when it functioned as a Roman Catholic cathedral. Following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque. In 1935, the government of the Turkish Republic transformed it into a museum as part of its secular reforms. In 2020, it was officially reopened for Islamic worship and once again began functioning as a mosque. #Istanbul #HagiaSophia #AyaSofya #Turkey #Türkiye #Travel #ByzantineHistory