Photos

One of the most popular views of the magnificient Hagia Sophia taken from the entrance of the Blue Mosque.

It is the third church on the same place, inaugurated by Emperor Justinian I in 537. (The first was inaugurated in 360, the second in 415.) Apart from a short period of Latin occupation (1204-1261) it served as the seat and main cathedral of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople till 1453 when Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror (Fatih) captured Constantinople and tranformed the church into a mosque. In 1935 Kemal Atatürk, the leader of the new Republic of Turkey, transformed the building into a museum.