Turkish State Council allows Erdogan to turn St. Sophia into a mosque

The Turkish State Council officially annulled the Atatürk decree of 1934 on giving the Cathedral of Hagia Sofia (Aya Sofia) in Istanbul the status of a museum, CNN Turk reported on July 10. The channel emphasizes that this decision of the state council allows you to use the cathedral as a mosque. Recall that earlier Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he was waiting for the decision of the State Council on the issue of changing the status of Hagia Sophia and turning it from a publicly accessible museum into a Muslim mosque. At the same time, he emphasized that he would act depending on this decision. Reference information agency: the church of Hagia Sophia was built by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in the middle of the VI century BC. e has since been considered the largest Christian temple in the world. After the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the cathedral was converted into a Muslim mosque. In 1934, by decree of the founder of the modern Turkish state, Kemal Atatürk, the temple received the status of a museum and was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.