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The Hagia Sophia (Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: ; Holy Wisdom) in Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the List of largest cities and second largest cities by country in Greece and the capital of Macedonia , the nation's largest Regions of Greece....
, Greece
Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkans. It has borders with Albania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the north, and Turkey to the east....
, is one of the oldest churches in that city still standing today.

ady in the 3th century, there was a church on the location of the current Hagia Sophia. In the 8th century, the present structure was erected, based on the Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia is a former Patriarchate basilica, later a mosque, now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture....
 in Constantinople
Constantinople

Constantinople was the empire capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire . Strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, Byzantine Constantinople had been the capital of a Christendom empire, successor to ancient ancient Greece...
 (present-day Istanbul
Istanbul

Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey, List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population, and List of cities proper by population in the world with a population of 12.6 million....
, Turkey
Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
). In 1205, when the Fourth Crusade
Fourth Crusade

The Fourth Crusade was originally designed to conquer Islam Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, in April 1204, the Crusaders of Western Europe invaded and conquered the Christianity city of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire....
 captured the city, the Hagia Sophia was converted into the cathedral
Cathedral

A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop. It is a Religion building for worship, specifically of a denomination with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Roman Catholic Church, Anglicanism, Orthodox Christian and some Lutheranism churches, which serves as a bishop's seat, and thus as the central church of a dioc...
 of Thessaloniki, which it remained after the city was returned to Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
 in 1246.






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The Hagia Sophia (Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: ; Holy Wisdom) in Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki , Thessalonica, or Salonica is the List of largest cities and second largest cities by country in Greece and the capital of Macedonia , the nation's largest Regions of Greece....
, Greece
Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkans. It has borders with Albania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the north, and Turkey to the east....
, is one of the oldest churches in that city still standing today.

History

Already in the 3th century, there was a church on the location of the current Hagia Sophia. In the 8th century, the present structure was erected, based on the Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia is a former Patriarchate basilica, later a mosque, now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture....
 in Constantinople
Constantinople

Constantinople was the empire capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire . Strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe meets Asia, Byzantine Constantinople had been the capital of a Christendom empire, successor to ancient ancient Greece...
 (present-day Istanbul
Istanbul

Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey, List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population, and List of cities proper by population in the world with a population of 12.6 million....
, Turkey
Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
). In 1205, when the Fourth Crusade
Fourth Crusade

The Fourth Crusade was originally designed to conquer Islam Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, in April 1204, the Crusaders of Western Europe invaded and conquered the Christianity city of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire....
 captured the city, the Hagia Sophia was converted into the cathedral
Cathedral

A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop. It is a Religion building for worship, specifically of a denomination with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Roman Catholic Church, Anglicanism, Orthodox Christian and some Lutheranism churches, which serves as a bishop's seat, and thus as the central church of a dioc...
 of Thessaloniki, which it remained after the city was returned to Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
 in 1246. After the capture of Thessaloniki by the Ottoman Sultan Murad II
Murad II

Murad II Kodja was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1421 to 1451 .Murad II's reign was marked by the long war he fought against the Christian peoples of the Balkans and the Turkic peoples emirates in Anatolia, a conflict that lasted 25 years....
 on 29 March 1430, the church was converted into a mosque .

Its ground plan is that of a domed
Dome

A dome is a structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. Dome structures made of various materials have a long architectural lineage extending into prehistory....
 Greek cross basilica
Basilica

The Latin word basilica , was originally used to describe a ancient Rome public building , usually located in the Forum of a Roman town. In Hellenistic cities, public basilicas appeared in the 2nd century BC....
. Together with the Gül
Gül Mosque

G?l Mosque is a former Eastern Orthodox Church in Istanbul, Turkey converted into a mosque by the Ottoman Empire....
 and the Kalenderhane Mosque
Kalenderhane Mosque

Kalenderhane Mosque is a former Eastern Orthodox Church church in Istanbul, converted into a mosque by the Ottoman Empire. With high probability the church was originally dedicated to the Theotokos Kyriotissa....
s in Istanbul
Istanbul

Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey, List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population, and List of cities proper by population in the world with a population of 12.6 million....
 and the destroyed Church of the Dormition
Dormition of the Theotokos

The Dormition of the Theotokos is a Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches and Eastern Catholic Churches which commemorates the "falling asleep" or death of the Theotokos ....
 in Nicaea
Iznik

Iznik is a city in Turkey which is known primarily as the site of the First Council of Nicaea and Second Council of Nicaea Councils of Nicaea, the first and seventh Ecumenical councils in the early history of the Christianity church, the Nicene Creed, and as the capital city of the Empire of Nicaea....
, it represents one of the main architectural examples of this type, typical of the Byzantine middle period
Byzantine architecture

Byzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire. The empire gradually emerged as a distinct artistic and cultural entity from what is today referred to as the Roman Empire after AD 330, when the Roman Emperor Constantine I moved the capital of the Roman Empire east from Rome to Byzantium....
  .

In the Iconoclastic
Iconoclasm

Iconoclasm, Greek for "image-breaking," is the deliberate destruction of important symbolic images recognized within a culture, religion, or society....
 era the apse
Apse

In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault . In Romanesque architecture, Byzantine architecture and Gothic architecture Christian abbey, cathedral and church architecture, the term is applied to the semi-circular or polygonal section of the sanctuary at the liturgical east end beyond the altar....
 of the church was embellished with plain gold mosaics with only one great cross, similarly to the Hagia Irene
Hagia Irene

Hagia Irene or Hagia Eirene is a former Eastern Orthodox church located in the outer courtyard of Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey....
 in Constantinople and the Church of the Dormition in Nicaea. The cross was substituted with the image of the Theotokos
Theotokos

Theotokos is a title of Mary, the mother of Jesus used especially in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches....
 in 787-797 after the victory of the Iconodules
Iconodules

An iconodule is someone who espouses iconodulism, i.e. who supports or is in favor of religious images or icons and their veneration, and is in opposition to an Iconoclasm, someone against the use of religious images....
. The mosaic in the dome now represents the Ascension of Jesus Christ with the inscription from Acts
Acts of the Apostles

The Acts of the Apostles is a book of the Bible, which now stands fifth in the New Testament. It is commonly referred to as simply Acts. The title "Acts of the Apostles" was first used by Irenaeus in the late second century, but some have suggested that the title "Acts" be interpreted as "the Acts of the Holy Spirit" or even "the Acts...
 1:11 "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?". The dome is ringed by the figures of all Twelve Apostles
Twelve Apostles

In Christianity, apostles were missionaries among the leaders in the Early Christianity and, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Jesus Christ himself....
, the Virgin Mary
Mary (mother of Jesus)

Mary , usually referred to by Christians as Saint Mary, the Virgin Mary, Holy Mary or the Madonna, was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, identified in the New Testament as the mother of Jesus of Nazareth....
 and two angels.

Much of the interior decoration was plastered over after the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917
Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917

The Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 was one of the most important incidents that marked the history of the city. It was an accident that considerably changed the physiognomy of the city....
, and the dome was restored in 1980.

Hagia Sophia is part of the site Palaeochristian and Byzantine
Byzantine

The word Byzantine may refer to:Topics directly related to the Byzantine Empire* A citizen of Byzantine Empire, or native Greeks during the Middle Ages ....
 Monuments of Thessaloniki on the list of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO

Bibliography


External links