One doesn’t need to ask directions to the Hagia Sophia while in Istanbul — as long as you’re on the correct side of the Bosporus, you’ll see it. It is a magnificent structure — formally a church and ...

The 1,500-year-old Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey, will become an active mosque beginning on July 24, ending its 85-year run as a secular museum. Byzantine Emperor Justinian I ordered the building’s ...

Religious and political leaders are decrying Turkey's decision to make Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, known for its Christian origin and as the secular Muslim nation's most popular tourist site, into a ...

A Turkish court has revoked the famed Hagia Sophia’s status as a museum, paving the way for the sixth-century architectural wonder, known for its sparkling Byzantine mosaics and frescoes, to be ...

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has signed a decree converting Hagia Sophia, the former cathedral of Holy Wisdom in Istanbul, into a mosque. The presidential decree was signed within hours of a ...

Pope Francis said he was saddened after a Turkish court ruled to revert the iconic Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque. U.S. bishops echoes his statement and urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ...

Few buildings, including culturally significant places of worship, have a history as rich and complicated as the Hagia Sophia. First erected in the 6th century C.E., the structure has variously been ...

The re-establishment of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia as a mosque by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is a powerful symbolic gesture, but it lacks imaginative vision. While the Hagia Sophia has ...

Changing the secular space back into a religious one is a risk for the World Heritage Site. In 2019, the Hagia-Sophia was the most-visited museum in Turkey.Credit...Piotr Redlinski for The New York ...

Thousands of people attended prayers at Istanbul's historic Hagia Sophia on Friday, completing the famous building's conversion from a secular space into a Muslim house of worship. It had been a ...

"Portrait of James Baldwin," by photographer Carl Van Vechten, taken Sept. 13, 1955 (Library of Congress) Few know about James Baldwin's years spent in Turkey. "I can't breathe, I have to look from ...