World Council of Churches expresses dismay over Hagia Sophia

The World Council of Churches' interim secretary-general Ioan Sauca said that the museum status had been "a powerful expression" of Turkey's commitment to inclusion and secularism.

Frankfurt:The interim secretary-general of the World Council of Churches has written to Turkey's president expressing his "grief and dismay" over Turkey's decision to change the status of Istanbul's landmark Hagia Sophia from a museum to a mosque.

As a World Heritage museum, "Hagia Sophia has been a place of openness, encounter and inspiration for people from all nations," Ioan Sauca said in the letter released Saturday by the Geneva-based group.

The colossal Hagia Sophia was built 1,500 years ago as an Orthodox Christian cathedral and was converted into a mosque after the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, now Istanbul, in 1453. The secular Turkish government decided in 1934 to make it a museum.

Sauca said the museum status had been "a powerful expression" of Turkey's commitment to inclusion and secularism.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday formally converted the building back into a mosque and declared it open for Muslim worship, hours after a high court annulled the 1934 decision turning it into a museum.

Erdogan, a devout Muslim, has frequently used the debate over Hagia Sophia to drum up support for his Islamic-rooted party. The decision has provoked deep dismay among Orthodox Christians.

AP