Karima Bennoune, a law professor, was appointed as Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights by the United Nations Human Rights Council in October 2015. She voiced her opinion on Hagia Sophia ...

Standing for 15 centuries and rebuilt three times in history, Hagia Sophia now integrates advanced technologies to enhance the visitor experience ...

CNA Staff, Jul 10, 2020 / 09:15 am. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has signed a decree converting Hagia Sophia, the former cathedral of Holy Wisdom in Istanbul, into a mosque.

The Hagia Sophia, located in Istanbul, Turkey, is a major historical and artistic monument famous for having been used by different religions. The UNESCO World Heritage Site was originally ...

For almost five centuries, Hagia Sophia—built as an imperial Byzantine cathedral in the sixth century and converted into a mosque following Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II's conquest of Constantinople ...

Bigger and better. The current Hagia Sophia was built in the 6th century when Constantinople — as Istanbul was then called — was the heart of the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire that ...

Soar over the magnificent Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey, in this awe-inspiring aerial journey. This stunning drone footage captures the iconic blend of Byzantine and Ottoman architecture, ...

Although it no longer functions as a church, Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, once the patriarchal basilica of the Archdiocese of Constantinople, is enough to knock one’s shoes off.

With the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque, secular Turkish citizens are “othered” as well. The conversion is therefore very challenging in a multi-religious and multi-ideological society.

Turkey has begun a new phase in sweeping restorations of the nearly 1,500-year-old Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, focusing on preserving the monument's historic domes from the threat of earthquakes.

Hagia Sophia is one of Turkey’s most recognizable landmarks and its most visited site, drawing more than 3.7 million visitors a year. Erdoğan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, ...

Built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 537, Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque with the 1453 Ottoman conquest of Istanbul. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding leader of the Turkish ...