Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (photo by Lori Erickson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>Imagine that you are an ordinary person in the sixth century, someone who lives in a modest dwelling and who has never been in a building taller than a couple of stories.\u00a0 Then one day you enter a new church constructed by the emperor, a place so resplendent, so opulent, and so huge that you can hardly believe it is real.\u00a0 As you walk through its massive doors, you enter into an interior that glitters with mosaics, icons, holy relics, and colored marble, all lit by thousands of flickering candles and lamps.\u00a0 And then you look up and see a perfectly shaped dome far above you, a dome that seems to float as if suspended on strings from the heavens.<\/p>\n
Even wealthy ambassadors from Kiev could hardly believe that such a place existed.\u00a0 In a report sent back to their prince, they wrote this:\u00a0 \u201cWe knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth.\u00a0 For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty\u2026We cannot describe it, but this much we can say:\u00a0 there God dwells among mankind.\u201d<\/p>\n
So perhaps the Emperor Justinian should be forgiven the hubris of his claim\u00a0after the church was completed:\u00a0 \u201cSolomon, I have surpassed you!\u201d<\/p>\n
Built on the remains of two previous churches by the most skilled artisans and laborers of the empire, this sanctuary, the Church of Holy Wisdom, was the foremost wonder of the Byzantine world.\u00a0 Completed in AD 537, it was here that emperors were crowned and the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils met to chart the theological course of Christianity.\u00a0 Though sacked by crusaders in 1204 and shaken by numerous earthquakes, for nearly a thousand years it reigned as the preeminent cathedral of Christendom.<\/p>\n
After Mehmet II conquered Constantinople in 1453, the church became one of the great mosques of the Muslim world.\u00a0 Its holy relics were removed, inscriptions from the Koran were painted on the interior of its great dome, and four minarets were built around\u00a0its exterior.\u00a0 In the mid-nineteenth century, six large discs bearing the names of God, Muhammad, and the first caliphs and imams were added to its interior, completing the building\u2019s unique blending of the iconography of two faiths.<\/p>\n
When I started making plans to visit Turkey, it was this place\u2014known as Hagia Sophia<\/em> in Greek and Aya Sofya<\/em> in Turkish\u2014that I wanted to see most of all.\u00a0 Few religious sanctuaries have had a more fascinating past.\u00a0 Hagia Sophia actually includes traditions even older than Christianity and Islam, for its interior pillars are said to have been taken from pagan temples throughout the ancient world, including the great Temple to Artemis at Ephesus.\u00a0 (It is a building so old that it contains graffiti done by Vikings<\/em>, for heaven\u2019s sake.)<\/p>\nSince 1935 Hagia Sophia has been a museum, which given the complicated religious history of Turkey is probably a necessary compromise.\u00a0 It is a building in need of constant repair, with perpetually peeling plaster and acres of cracked marble.\u00a0 It has too many people tramping through it who see it as just a museum and not as a place of worship.\u00a0 It is poorly lit and it echoes with the voices of visitors.<\/p>\n
And yet.<\/p>\n
When I think back to my two visits to Hagia Sophia (for I had to go twice, since once was not nearly enough) the image that comes to my mind is the glow of burnished gold.\u00a0 Hagia Sophia is like a once stunningly beautiful woman whose face is now ravaged by age, but whose loveliness is still mesmerizing.<\/p>\n
I look back at my pictures and realize that they don\u2019t begin to do Hagia Sophia justice. Tomorrow I\u2019ll post some snippets, but for today, here\u2019s a brief video clip of its interior, shot when I was standing on its second floor and looking down into its main sanctuary.\u00a0 It\u2019s a poor quality video, but it\u2019s the only way I know to give you at least a little\u00a0sense of the scale of this amazing place.<\/p>\n
httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BkgB-gudVG8<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Imagine that you are an ordinary person in the sixth century, someone who lives in a modest dwelling and who has never been in a building taller than a couple of stories.\u00a0 Then one day you enter a new church constructed by the emperor, a place so resplendent, so opulent, and so huge that you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[153],"tags":[205,394,449],"class_list":["post-5557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-turkey","tag-aya-sofya","tag-hagia-sophia","tag-istanbul"],"yoast_head":"\n
The Church of Holy Wisdom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Imagine that you are an ordinary person in the sixth century, someone who lives in a modest dwelling and who has never been in a building taller than a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Church of Holy Wisdom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Imagine that you are an ordinary person in the sixth century, someone who lives in a modest dwelling and who has never been in a building taller than a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Holy Rover\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-01-27T23:23:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/files\/2011\/01\/IMG_1634-1024x682.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lori Erickson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lori Erickson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/\",\"name\":\"The Church of Holy Wisdom\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-01-27T23:23:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-01-27T23:23:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/#\/schema\/person\/66e798593cfa9b70fcd5c97aa9ca7933\"},\"description\":\"Imagine that you are an ordinary person in the sixth century, someone who lives in a modest dwelling and who has never been in a building taller than a\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Church of Holy Wisdom\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/\",\"name\":\"Holy Rover\",\"description\":\"Practical Advice for Spiritual Travels\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/#\/schema\/person\/66e798593cfa9b70fcd5c97aa9ca7933\",\"name\":\"Lori Erickson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eccf48891e91c03ddbb504238ae4c524?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eccf48891e91c03ddbb504238ae4c524?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Lori Erickson\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/author\/lerickson\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Church of Holy Wisdom","description":"Imagine that you are an ordinary person in the sixth century, someone who lives in a modest dwelling and who has never been in a building taller than a","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Church of Holy Wisdom","og_description":"Imagine that you are an ordinary person in the sixth century, someone who lives in a modest dwelling and who has never been in a building taller than a","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/","og_site_name":"Holy Rover","article_published_time":"2011-01-27T23:23:37+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/files\/2011\/01\/IMG_1634-1024x682.jpg"}],"author":"Lori Erickson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Lori Erickson","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/","name":"The Church of Holy Wisdom","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-01-27T23:23:37+00:00","dateModified":"2011-01-27T23:23:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/#\/schema\/person\/66e798593cfa9b70fcd5c97aa9ca7933"},"description":"Imagine that you are an ordinary person in the sixth century, someone who lives in a modest dwelling and who has never been in a building taller than a","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2011\/01\/27\/the-church-of-holy-wisdom\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Church of Holy Wisdom"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/","name":"Holy Rover","description":"Practical Advice for Spiritual Travels","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/#\/schema\/person\/66e798593cfa9b70fcd5c97aa9ca7933","name":"Lori Erickson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eccf48891e91c03ddbb504238ae4c524?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eccf48891e91c03ddbb504238ae4c524?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Lori Erickson"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/author\/lerickson\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2582"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/628\/2011\/01\/IMG_1634-1024x682.jpg\" "\\"IMG_1634\\"")