The Chora Museum is located in Istanbul's historic district and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The building is one of the most important cultural heritage buildings in the history of the Byzantine Empire, with Byzantine 14th century mosaic on the walls, and has had several shapes.

Now Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has decided that the museum will become a mosque, and will be renamed the Kariye Mosque.

The decision worries several cultural heritage researchers who fear that the Christian cultural heritage in Turkey will become increasingly inaccessible to visitors and researchers, according to The art newspaper.

Built as a church

It was built as a church in the 400s, and was then a church. It then became a mosque during the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. During the Turkish Republic, the mosque was given the status of a museum in 1945, writes Kulturnytt.

President Erdogan's electorate is made up of conservative Muslims, and in recent years he has made several decisions to revive ideals from the Ottoman Empire. A legacy that has been pushed back into secular Turkey for the past 100 years.