Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [113]
Fatally weakened by the Crusaders, the city ultimately fell to Sultan Mehmet II, who transformed Hagia Sophia into a mosque in 1454. He and other Ottoman rulers subsequently added four minarets, which give a welcome sense of loftiness to what is, I’m sorry to say, a somewhat squat building. They also altered the interior in a manner I would describe as sacrilegious, although I’m certain they were merely following the accepted pillage-and-plunder conventions of the day. The Ottomans, to their credit, merely covered up the Christian depictions that offended them, doing less damage than the Crusaders had.
To my personal list of desecrators I add the well-regarded Swiss architects Gaspare and Giuseppe Fossati. Their uninspired nineteenth-century Ottoman-ordered alterations included replastering and repainting as well as hanging huge painted wooden shields, replete with Arabic writing, high on the tiled walls. They are as jarring as billboards along a country road. To me, the Fossatis were the Ringling Brothers of architects, their appallingly bright yellows and blues making much of the present interior resemble an Islamic big top.
Hagia Sophia ceased being a mosque in 1932 by decree of Kemal Atatürk, the man who transformed Turkey into a secular republic and, for all practical purposes, ended the argument over whether Hagia Sophia should be Christian or Muslim: He made it a museum. Today, admission is steep and some of the secondary buildings remain closed to the public. No official tours are offered, exhibits are barely adequate, and the gift shop could use a marketing manager.
Fundamentalist Muslims in Turkey have petitioned the government to make Hagia Sophia a mosque once again. (A friend of mine living in Turkey, an exceedingly pragmatic Muslim, says that the last thing the city needs is another working mosque, since hardly anybody prays at those currently in operation.) The Ecumenical Patriarchate, headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Church, remains in Istanbul against all odds—one of its patriarchs, or church leaders, was hanged for treason in 1821 after backing Greek efforts to overthrow the Ottomans. The Patriarchate fervently wants Hagia Sophia to be a church again.
A representative of the Patriarchate told me that a more reasonable aspiration is for the Turkish government to permit the celebration of a liturgy there once a year, which would bring honor, goodwill, and tourism. The Church is unlikely to get even that. The representative (who asked that his name be withheld) pointed out that the official designation of the Greek Orthodox Church by the Turkish government is Fener Rum Patriarchate, which essentially reduces it to a neighborhood religious organization (Fener is the name of an Istanbul quarter). While I was there, the Patriarchate was involved in a dispute with local government officials over the ownership of some minor apartment buildings, which hardly bodes well for its claims to Hagia Sophia itself.
I found a guide outside the gates of the museum. He was mingling with the carpet dealers, which should have warned me off. The stooped fellow gave his age as seventy-five, his name as Mustafa Barlak, his provenance as Bulgarian Turk. He looked and acted like Abe Vigoda, who played Detective Phil Fish on the seventies TV show Barney Miller. When I complained that he took nothing seriously, he said, “People like the legends and the stories. Don’t blame me.”
Barlak explained that the oil-burning chandeliers in Hagia Sophia were hung low in order to enhance the little light they do provide. “Thomas Edison wasn’t with us then.” He described a tilted marble column as the “Turkish Tower of Pisa.” Not in his repertoire were the most enduring and evocative legends of Hagia Sophia. It is said that two priests were celebrating Mass when the Ottomans broke through the doors, whereupon the priests melted into the walls, carrying with them precious artifacts; they will not return until Constantinople is again a Christian city. Another story has it that the original altar is at the bottom of the