On this day in 532 the Byzantine emperor Justinian I lays the foundation stone of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia

27 comments

  1. Originally a church, later (after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453) a mosque, the 6th-century Hagia Sophia was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years, until the completion of the Seville Cathedral in 1507.

  2. I will never forget the sorrow I felt when I visited it. This church and that city was taught troughout my school years so many times. Even tho we had our kingdom, it was still the center of gravity. I know when it fell, and I know it’s fate, but seeing it in person was something different, I never taught it would feel like that.

  8. Technically, there was no such thing as “Orthodox Christianity” in the 6th century as the split between Eastern and Western Christianity (i.e. Roman Catholicism) had yet to formally occur, but sure.

  10. An interesting fact about it: There’s a lot of really old graffiti in there, including one in runic script from the 9th century that basically says “Halfdan was here”. It is believed that he was a Viking who got hired by the Emperor as a guard.

  16. I visited it a few months ago. It’s indeed a Beautiful structure. It still has remnants of the old church inside. During the First Balkan war the Tsar of Bulgaria (Ferdinand l) wanted to retake Constantinople and to put a big golden cross on top of the mosque and return it back to being a church under Bulgarian control. This however of course never happened because the Turks stopped the Bulgarian army just a few kilometres from Constantinople and wanted peace. If Bulgaria managed to conquer Constantinople, the great powers would of 100% not allowed Bulgaria to have it. Russia also wanted Constantinople so they also didn’t want Bulgaria to take it. It was also an absurd claim that didn’t have the support of most Bulgarians because of the ethnic demographic of Constantinople and the fact that it wasn’t part of the Bulgarian irredentist ideal.

  18. The fall of Constantinople is probably the saddest moment in history tbh, the end result of western betrayal brought upon centuries of Turkish onslaught into Europe itself.

  20. And 1.490 years later AEK found the Second Hagia Sophia in the name of Greek sports!
    💛🖤💛🇬🇷

    Fun fact: Hagia Sophia doesn’t mean Saint Sophia,but the Wisdom of God, meaning the Highest Order of all Temples.

  24. It would be nice if Christians and Muslims could make an arrangement to divide the Hagia Sofia and other churches turned mosques, so each group would be allowed to pray and hold religious ceremonies on specific days. There could also be certain days a week when it would operate exclusively as a museum. But I guess this is not a realistic possibility.

  25. As far as i know there was a temple in its place in Pagan Period. After when Roman Empire’s capital became Constantinople first Hagia Sophia built. In Iustinianus period there was an uprising and a lots of structure destroyed or damaged in Constantinople. This gave Iustinianus the opportunity to rebuild the city. He wanted to show his power with new buildings to be built and that he was a true Roman emperor. Anyways Hagia Sophia was among these newly built buildings…..

  27. It’s absolutely mind-boggling that they had the technology to erect such monumental buildings and then it was lost for essentially a thousand years.

    I fully understand why Asimov wrote Foundation after reading *The Fall of the Roman Empire.*

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