Moscow (AFP)
Russian authorities and the Orthodox Church were worried on Monday about the desire of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to convert the former Hagia Sophia in Istanbul into a mosque.
Russian Patriarch Kirill said in a statement "deeply concerned" about a possible change in status of "one of the greatest monuments of Christian culture" and "particularly dear to the Russian Church", heir to Byzantine traditions .
"Any attempt to humiliate or trample on the millennial spiritual heritage of the Church of Constantinople is perceived by the Russian people - formerly as today - with bitterness and indignation," warned the patriarch of Moscow.
"A threat to Hagia Sophia is a threat to the whole of Christian civilization, and therefore to our spirituality and our history," he added, calling on the Turkish government to "be careful".
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told him "hope that the status of the Hagia Sophia as a World Heritage property will be taken into account" by Ankara.
He also considered that Hagia Sophia had "a sacred value" for the Russians, while judging that the question of the reconversion or not of the place fell within "internal affairs of Turkey".
The Russian Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sergei Verchinin, also called on Ankara to "take into account the global importance" of the ancient Byzantine basilica.
The highest administrative court in Turkey on Thursday studied a request to convert the former Hagia Sophia to a mosque, a measure that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calls for at the risk of creating tension with several countries.
The court must now announce its decision within 15 days.
A major architectural work built in the 6th century by the Byzantines who crowned their emperors there, Hagia Sophia is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the main tourist attractions in Istanbul.
Converted into a mosque after the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453, Hagia Sophia was transformed into a museum in 1935 by the leader of the young Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal, anxious to "offer it to humanity".
© 2020 AFP