Talk:Hagia Sophia

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[edit] sentence grammar

on the last sentence of the first paragraph, it says "Its conquest by the Ottomans at the fall of Constantinople is considered one of the great tragedies of Christianity by the Greek Orthodox faithful."

for me, i dont think it makes sense =[[ anybody can help with that?? like how it's supposed to mean?? chika 17:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] alternate spelling

I've added the alternate spelling Ayiaa Sophia, as this is now the transliteration most Greeks prefer, and is the one provided on official Greek government literature. The "H" at the beginning represents a breath-mark in ancient Greek that no longer exists in modern Greek, but in any case was likely not pronounced like an English "h" would be. The "g" in the older transliteration represents a gamma, which has a sound somewhat between a "g" and a "y"; however, in this context, it clearly is much closer to a "y". (The shift is somewhat analogous to the Indian government renaming Bombay to Mumbai and the Chinese government renaming Peking to Beijing.) Delirium 07:53 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I have corrected the spelling from "Sophia" to "Sofia". Sophia is the Latin version of the name: proper spelling and usage is Sofia. Elias Bizannes 18:02, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Here are two references on the Greek rough breathing mark (῾):

There is no letter h in the Greek alphabet, but this sound occurs at the beginning of many Greek words. It is indicated by a mark called a rough breathing or aspiration, written over the first vowel of a word (over the second vowel of a diphthong).

Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek, Maurice Balme and Gilbert Lawall, p. ix.

Every word beginning with a vowel or diphthong has a rough (῾) or smooth (᾿) breathing. A rough breathing denotes an initial h, a smooth breathing ... the absence of initial h.

Teach Yourself Ancient Greek, Gavin Betts and Alan Henry, pp. 3-4.

(If the breathing marks are hard to see, try increasing the text size.) Cheers. --DavidConrad 00:43, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming Proposal

The "correction" made is in fact not to the most common English usage. The most common English usage (which is what dictates Wikipedia naming convention; see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)) is Hagia Sophia. Google yields 391,000 hits for Hagia Sophia, but only 76,800 for Hagia Sofia. Additionally, Hagia Sophia is the spelling in both the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium and the Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity.

It is true that that spelling comes from Latin, but then again, so do many English usages regarding Greek subjects. For instance, the Wikipedia article for the sainted hero of the First Council of Nicea is spelled as Athanasius, and not Athanasios. The same goes for Ignatius of Antioch.

This name change should not have been enacted without a discussion first. I've reverted the changes. ——Preost ^talk contribs 01:31, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Apologies for not dıscussing it fırst but I acted because despıte common usage, it is so obviously wrong. Using the other major search engines, wıth the alternate prefixes of agia and ayia, yield higher results for Sofia. Furthermore, the spelling of the name sofia as a sıngle word is more common then Sophia, usıng any search engine. This may be because of the capital of Bulgaria skewıng the results. But lookıng deeper at that, the city of Sofia also got ıts name from a church wıth the same name, ın the city.

Nevertheless, the PH ın the name does stretch the name a bıt, renderıng the pronouncıatıon closer to the orıgınal name ın Greek, as readers saying sofia mıght pronounce ıt as sof-ya, rather than the correct so-phee-a. It ıs still wrong, but arguing over names ıs petty, so do what you want. Elias Bizannes 13:08, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Common usage is precisely what determines the "right" and "wrong" of spelling in any language. Dictionaries and encyclopedias, after all, simply represent what the consensus is—they can't dictate it. A culture will spell words how it likes, and in this case, English speakers tend to want to spell this subject as Hagia Sophia.

One could just as easily argue (probably with more grounds, in fact) that this name shouldn't be spelled with anything but Greek letters, that Latin letters are inherently wrong. ——Preost ^talk contribs 21:35, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I offered to end the argument because I am traveling the world and haven't the time. But if you insist. First of all, using SoPHia implies a cultural bias. Secondly, Hagia Sophia is as common as the other variants, rendering the Wikipedia naming convention of common usage not applicable. Thirdly, if there is no commonly used English name, the convention asks for an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language.

Sophia is common usage. But so is the alternate spelling of Sofia. (Using other search engines show a smaller gap). The 'common usage' of the term Hagia Sophia is by no means the majority view. Furthermore your search engine methodology is distorted, because it takes advantage of the three different spellings of 'Hagia' hence splitting the commonly held view of spelling sofia/sophia. Searching Sofia as a single term is by far more 'common usage'. And using the prefixes of agia and ayia, yield higher results for Sofia.

If "English speakers tend to want to spell this subject as Hagia Sophia" why is it there are so many different types of spellings with no dominant and majority view? Despite your attempts to represent the Crusade for how English speakers REALLY want to spell things, the answer to my question is because transliteration is opinion. Opinion is not fact. And in our case, there is not single common usage.

On a direct Greek-to-Latin translation it is 'Agia Sofia' with the 'g' open to interpretation because there is no direct latin character equivilant. The sound is a mix between Y and G. For that reason, I don't argue about Hagia/agia/ayia and leave it to linguists more intelligent than me. But what justification is there to spell it as Sophia rather than Sofia? soPHia is a western european interpretation - the same guys that bagged out anything to do with the Byzantine Empire up until recently. I am not going to go into that, but people who know about Byzantine hisory know it has been distorted. And the spelling implies a cultural bias - like the cultural bias of the Byzantine empire. Whilst English is a western European language, the English encyclopedia is transnational. Seeing as the PH sound is exactly the same as the F sound, why insist on PH, when F is closer to the truth?

Because of the distortion of the search results with the first word, shouldn't we be using common usage for 'sofia' instead? Given the games Google is currently playing with its 'guess how many pages we can index' it may be more accurate to rely on the other engines

"At the same time, when there is no long-established history of usage of the term, more consideration should be given to the correctness of translation, rather than frequency of usage (in a typical example of testing the usage by counting google hits, if one version gets 92 hits, while another one gets 194 hits, it can hardly be decisive)." (source: naming convention)

Hagia Sophia is a recent term with no long term usage - Hagia being a recent addition. And there are also many variations - lest of all because of the reinterpretations of Byzantine history. As I scramble to write this in a Turkish internet cafe, just before I visit yet another Hagia Sofia in eastern Turkey, I propose Hagia Sofia as correct usage.

Elias Bizannes 16:03, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

There clearly is a long-established history of the term, as it is represented consistently as Hagia Sophia in standard English print publications, such as those noted above. Do you have any comment on that?

In any event, regarding the Google test, let's examine some numbers:

"Hagia Sophia" == 414,000[1]

"Agia Sophia" == 14,500[2]

"Ayia Sophia" == 563[3]

"Aya Sophia" == 27,500[4]

"Hagia Sofia" == 74,900[5]

"Agia Sofia" == 32,900[6]

"Ayia Sofia" == 515[7]

"Aya Sofia" == 45,100[8]

The Google test shows that "Hagia Sophia" has more than twice (414,000) the number of hits of all the other spellings combined (195,978). There is clearly a "dominant and majority view." "Hagia Sophia" doesn't just have a plurality (the most hits), it has a majority (more than half). In fact, roughly 68% of all Google hits (taking into account all the spellings above) are "Hagia Sophia."

Further, Amazon.com records 23 books with the phrase "Hagia Sophia" in the title, but only 2 with "Hagia Sofia" (which aren't books, but art prints), 1 with "Agia Sofia" (which is in German), and 0 with any of the other spellings. Further, of the many dozens of references that currently exist to this church in Wikipedia, only 7 use the "Hagia Sofia" spelling. 1 uses "Aya Sofia."[9]

"Hagia Sophia" is the spelling used in the Columbia Encyclopedia[10], Encyclopedia.com[11], Britannica[12], the Catholic Encyclopedia[13], and so on. The numbers are in favor of "Hagia Sophia" everywhere, and it is clearly the established usage in numerous English reference works.

Regarding the question of cultural bias, there is indeed a cultural bias at work here, and it is Anglophonic culture, which is what determines spelling. It seems to me that English speakers should be able to determine for themselves how they will spell their words, and the numbers clearly show that English speakers have chosen "Hagia Sophia" as the manner in which to spell the name for this church.

So, my vote on the renaming proposal is a very strong (and well grounded, IMO) keep. ——Preost ^talk contribs 00:21, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I wish I had the time to put some evidence, but I can't for reasons I have already explained. Your point of view is convincing enough, but I look forward to returning home to Australia at the end of this year to settle it finally. Keep (for now at least). Elias Bizannes 16:36, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

The argument that a particular transliteration is more true to the original seems highly problematic to me. The only correct version would be the original Greek. Regarding "Hagia Sophia", the Latin H is used to represent the Greek rough breathing mark. The modern pronunciation may not reflect this, but the pronunciation of beta, delta, and chi have also changed in modern Greek, as I understand it, so that drachma is pronounced like "thrashma". Should we change the spelling of the Greek currency in the Greece article to reflect that? Latin G is used for Greek gamma, and again the pronunciation of the name may not be as one might expect for the letter G, but it is an accurate transliteration.

Finally, there is PH for the Greek phi, which I would assume you would prefer to write "fi". PH is used for phi not only in Sophia, but in Sophocles, Sophos, Amphiboly, Philosophy, Hephaestos, Ctesiphon, Antiphon, Aristophanes, Iphigenia, Aphrodite, and Xenophon, and many more. You said that, "Seeing as the PH sound is exactly the same as the F sound, why insist on PH, when F is closer to the truth?" If they are exactly the same, how can one be closer to the truth?

The Greek letters phi, chi, and theta were at one time pronounced as aspirated variants of pi, kappa, and tau (Teach Yourself Ancient Greek, Gavin Betts and Alan Henry, p. 2), but the pronunciation of phi and theta changed over time, as beta, delta, and chi have done more recently. This may form an argument in favor of PH, but I would argue more on the basis of tradition.

For myself, I would say that the article should document the pronunciation (which it does), be entitled "Hagia Sophia", and the other proposed titles could be redirects to it if they are not already. --DavidConrad 08:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] dates

Hagia Sofia, according to my information, was consecrated by Emperor Justinian in December 563. This does not quite fit with the construction dates in the main page. Does anyone have more accurate information? 203.79.72.140

I wouldn't think any emperor would do the actual consecration; that should have been done by a bishop or patriarch. According to this web site, "on December 27, 537, Patriarch Menas consecrated the magnificent church." That date is also confirmed here. That also says that Hagia Sofia was actually the third temple at that location, and the work done in the 530s was a rebuilding from the foundations. Wesley

Your evidence looks good to me. The reference I have (a guidebook) is that on Christmas Eve, 563, Justinian inaugurated' the Church. (in the last months of his reign). Vignaux

First off, in English we use 'church' rather than 'temple' for Orthodox, Catholic, and most Protestant worship buildings.

Second, Constantine built a Hagia Sophia in the 320s - it was a basilical church, shaped and decorated much like St. Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome (like the 4th century church of St. Peter's and the 4th century Church of St. John Lateran, too, but the first of those was replaced and the second so remodeled you can't tell). Constantine's H.S. was burned in the Nike Riot of 532. The initial rebuilding (in the present form) was complete by 537. The central dome collapsed about 20 years later and was rebuilt. That's where the 563 comes from - so it wasn't consecrated, but re-consecrated (if that). MichaelTinkler

Thanks for the additional history. In my very limited time in the Orthodox Church in America, it's been my experience that buildings are typically called 'chapel', 'temple', or 'cathedral', by native speakers of English. Sometimes 'church' is used as well. Is there any particular reason why the sentence about the mosaics on the floor being uncovered was deleted? Was that thought to be inaccurate or irrelevant? Seems relevant to me, if true. Wesley

The sentence about the mosaics on the floor being uncovered was not deleted, it was just moved to chronological order. Hephaestos

Really? I've walked by a church just east of Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis on which a conspicuous sign says "Saint Mary's Greek Orthodox Church". I think it says that on their web site too. In My Big Fat Greek Wedding the sign on the church said "Greek Orthodox Church" (I think it was preceeded by a name). And when a church across the street from the World Trade Center was nearly (or totally?) destroyed on 9/11/2001, it was identified in a newspaper article I read about it as being a "Greek Orthodox Church" and its priest was quoted as saying something about "my church". Could it be that your experience of Russian-affiliated churches has exposed you to language different from that of Greek-affiliated ones? Michael Hardy 02:45 Jan 14, 2003 (UTC)

I think that a variety of uses can be found. For instance, in this list of OCA parishes in Alaska (http://www.oca.org/pages/directory/list_results.asp?location=AK&B1=Submit), you can see the names of various parishes ending with Church, Mission, Deanery, Chapel, Cathedral, and even Community. Looking for Greek Orthodox parishes in California turned up mostly Churches, but also a few Chapels and Cathedrals: http://www.goarch.org/en/parishes/ParishSearch.asp?parish=&clergy=&State=CA&city=&SearchRadius=15&SearchZip=&Diocese=&btnSubmit.x=51&btnSubmit.y=12&offset=10. When it comes to stuff like this, it's not surprising to find a variety of sorts of names in use. But you're right in that there doesn't seem to be any special effort to avoid calling the place a "Church", and to keep this relevant, it looks like the place in question was called the Church of Hagia Sophia. Wesley 16:12 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Being Greek it is my understanding that the best word to use is church. A Greek orthodox "building" of any kind would certainly never be called a cathedral. It is to my best knowledge a word used by every other christian dogma than Orthodoxes for reasons unfortunately not known to me. Communities and missions might have a greek translation but not meaning a church and rather a mission in it's original meaning in English. You could call the really small churches chapels. The original Greek word is 'ekklisia' which is ancient greek and means gathering-in this case as it has been used in christian times, gathering of the people to worship god. In classical Greece and namely in the democratic Athens ekklisia tou dimou (gathering of the citizens) was their means for commonly deciding matters. It is obvious that the popoulation was less!

And by the way tha Ayia Sofia is really magnificent. I've been there and so should every one else.

Hoping to have enlightened you. Gerasimos

A cathedral is a church where the head priest is a bishop. If the Hagia Sophia was used by the bishop of Constantinople, then it is a cathedral. David.Monniaux 07:11, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

True enough, Hagia Sophia _can_ be called a cathedral, as it was the patriarchal church, but the word "cathedral" comes from Latin (cathedera, the bishop's throne), and therefore is rarely used in a Greek context.--oknazevad 09:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] a may 7 anniversary

An event mentioned in this article is a May 7 selected anniversary (may be in HTML comment) --User:Maveric149 08:28, May 3, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] illustration Blue Mosque

Why in the world is an article on the Hagia Sophia illustrated with a picture of the interior of the Blue Mosque? Why is that image there at all? --Delirium 23:16, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] translation

I changed this part, because I don't think it's true:

Αγια Σοφια in Greek that means "Holy Wisdom", not "Saint Sophia" except in mistranslation

It can mean either, as Άγια means holy and Σοφία is both wisdom and a Greek name that derives from the word wisdom. Therefore Saint Sophia is written in Greek as Άγια Σοφία. Now whether the church was intended to be named after Wisdom, after St. Sophia, or after both, is another matter, but the translation itself is not incorrect. --Delirium 22:25, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] I object to this statement

"This means that Muslims do not have to confront Christian imagery in the main chamber of the building, which was a mosque for nearly 500 years."

It is an opinion and has nothing to do with Hagia Sophia.

It is not an opinion, it is a perfectly factual statement. Adam 09:23, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Here is my take about this "crap" : Last time I've been to Ayasofya I don't remember paying anything to go up the stairs. But even IF I had to pay (it's a museum, they may decide to charge if they want) it would not mean that muslims are spared of pictures of a guy who died 2000 years ago. The cause and effect of this sentence is a bit weird don't you think: "you have to pay to go up, so this means muslims don't have to see pictures" ??? If people don't want to see a picture of a saint, then they don't climb upstairs, even if it's free. The sentence in the article sounds like by making it fee-based, they spare muslims or something. I don't even understand what this sentence is trying to tell. Hence, it's a total bullcrap in short. I propose to remove it. I am also not comfortable with other things in the article, but this one is totally stupid, besides the fact that it's POV which doesn't belong here.

It's not POV -- it's conjecture. It's perhaps not written in the clearest fashion, but the conjecture is that only icons in the upper galleries are being uncovered, so as not to offend the iconoclastic doctries of Islam. --—Preost ^talk contribs 19:23, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

There's a little difference btw. conjecture and POV. Here's my conjecture: the mosaics and

icons are being uncovered starting from top to allow for maximum amount of visiting time. Had they started from bottom, nobody could visit the museum. How about this? In 21st century, Turks do not care much about the "iconoclastic doctrines". I propose to remove the conjecture. Also, please see below about restorations.

Update: the following photo was taken in Dec. 2004, showing the entrance. So much for your conjecture. You can reach this photo from the link in the article.

http://www.pbase.com/dosseman/image/37894800

[edit] Restorations

Regarding the discussions about restoration, please read the following documents and modify the article appropriately. The building was NOT "allowed to decay".

http://www.islamicarchitecture.org/architecture/hagia.sophia.mosque.html http://www2.arch.uiuc.edu/research/rgouster/hagiasophia/hs.html http://archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.tcl?site_id=2966 http://www.unesco.org/archi2000/pdf/ozil.pdf

I don't dispute that the Christian mosaic above the entrance is visible as shown in the photo, but nevertheless I was told by a Turkish tour guide in 2002 that the reason the majority of the Christian mosaics in the main (ground floor) body of the church had not been uncovered is that this would offend Muslims, since the building was a mosque for 500 years. Adam 05:15, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, unfortunately there are enough idiots in Turkey as well as in any country and some of them are tour guides for a living. Or maybe he wasn't able to communicate properly, the mosaics were covered as long as the museum was a mosque obviously, but christian mosaics doesn't offend anybody today. Also, if you go through links I provided in restoration above, you'll see that one of the purposes of the restorations was to preserve the different periods of history of Hagia Sophia, and different modifications done to it throughout history. It would offend me if they had gotten rid of everything done to it since 1453, because it is certainly a part of its history and in a museum you should preserve every period. Right now, you can see the influences of different periods in a balanced way.

Is it really necessary or helpful to characterize other editors' sources as "idiots"? One would at least hope that a person making such a characterization could be bothered to register for a Wikipedia account rather than appearing only behind the semi-anonymous mask of a mere IP address. --—Preost ^talk contribs 19:15, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Remaining anonymous is a choice, which shouldn't bother you at all. "sources" is a sensitive subject, citing people's opinions on the street hardly constitutes an objective source. I at least bothered to find objective sources on the internet and listed them instead of writing my own (or somebody else's) opinion. Anybody who's offended by a saint's picture in an old church (or islamic art in an old mosque) is an idiot in my book, and that's my opinion, which I didn't put in the article.

Yes, but you did put it in what ought to be a well-mannered discussion between editors. Additionally, the URLs you posted had no bearing on the question of why the mosaics have been uncovered in the particular way they have. What if others simply characterized your sources as being those of idiots? After all, just because something is on the Internet doesn't make it either objective or accurate.

In any event, I can't say that I put very much stock in the opinions of someone who won't even register for an account and then acts in such a fashion. You even followed me to my weblog and posted an anonymous comment there, as well. I can't say that I find it altogether worthwhile to try to work on this article with you. --—Preost ^talk contribs 20:50, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

If you look at my sources you'll see that they are at least either on university or professional web sites. I have no idea why they started from top, you don't either, that's why we shouldn't put any comments on that in the article. What is a fact today is that a lot of mosaics are uncovered, both at the top and at the bottom, and as I said before, the idea is to preserve all periods, not just one.

Yes I posted something on your weblog, which was my opinion on the subject, and I don't know why you have a problem with that, you made your weblog public but you can remove my comment from it if you want. Being anonymous is my choice and you have to respect that, whether you want to work on any article in wikipedia is your choice. If you decide to work on anything, the least you got to do is to be as objective as you can and think twice before putting something in an article that is baseless and will infuriate people for that reason. This article is far from being perfect, I will read more and try to contribute to it if I have time in future, but I am not planning to respond to your comments, unless they are related to facts.

Like many Turks, I am sick and tired of people who pay couple of visits to Turkey and start thinking of themselves as some kind of an expert. I may have used a few words that are not polite, but I am very frustrated about some of the stuff people write in wikipedia articles about Turkey, it is one thing to "bend" the truth, it's a totally different thing to write something that is plain wrong. These articles should not be about opinions, but facts, and that requires little more effort than just citing a tour guide. After all, I have lived a big part of my life in Turkey, but I still refer to reputable sources when I modify a wikipedia article about Turkey. And I hope this is the end of this little strayed discussion.

Well, at least you have stated your bias forthrightly, i.e., that you are representing a Turkish POV. For that, at least, we can be grateful. --—Preost ^talk contribs 21:48, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Everybody represents their own POV, you, as a devoted Christian, represent your own POV too. I do not, however, include my POV in any article, hence I stand corrected.

What the tour guide said was not that uncovering the mosaics would offend Turks, but that it would offend Muslims. There are other Muslims in the world beside Turks. The guide was not an idiot. As a historian I had a long talk with him about Greek and Turkish history and asked him quite difficult questions, and he was a very intelligent and well-informed person. If I have to choose between his opinion and that of an abusive anonymous editor here on why the mosaics have not all been uncovered, I will choose his, thanks. And I am not a Christian by the way. Adam 01:41, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I did offer an alternate explanation, if you read correctly what I wrote. "It WOULD OFFEND ME if they had gotten rid of everything SINCE 1453" and "EVERY period should be presented in a museum". If a structure is used as a mosque for 500 years, of course you don't want to uncover everything at the expense of islamic art. I am NOT abusive, I am trying to make a point, whether you want to accept or not. I do not understand why being anonymous lessens the value of contribution, had I had a name, would that put more weight on my point? By the way, my comment about being a good christian was to ASDamick, not to you. He was the one to stretch this discussion to places which had nothing to do with my point, and I'm afraid nobody gets my point, so be it.

I was under the impression that the minarets were erected by different sultans (thus, the fact that only two of the four are identical). If so, it would be nice to find out the dates of construction of each minaret and also clarify the following statement:

 ...the old minarets were also demolished, the minarets were added which can be seen today....

- Cybjorg 14:24, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion of "de-Islamized image"

Lectiodifficilior is moving this discussion from his talk page and from his revert explanation.

The edit: User User:CristianChirita added the image and text to the right.

Artistic representation

Revert explanation: Lectiodifficilior removed the image with rv; we are not putting a "religiously cleansed" image—all muslim traces photoshopped out—on top. Good grief the POV

Talk message from Lectiodifficilior to User:CristianChirita:

The image you posted is not an "Artistic Representation" it's a "cleansed" representation, with all Muslim elements removed. This is the very definition of POV, akin to Photoshopping the Dome of the Rock from Jerusalem, or NYC from Manhattan. I also wonder about its copyright status. I saw that image somewhere once, and I did not have the impression if was GLFD. Lectiodifficilior

Response by User:CristianChirita:

1.Yes indeed the image I've posted is an "Artistic Representation" with a "cleansed" representation, with all Muslim elements removed. I don't consider the umage as POV because was a time when the image of church was looking in this way. It is not something fantastic but an artistic representation of the church before the muslim coquest. I don't think that a recostruction of an image hurt someones feelings.I also wonder about its copyright status: the image is declared PD on orthodoxwiki , the te link on the image page.

Considering the history of the church I don't think taht the reconstruction will hurt muslim feeling, because they must be very proud that the church was preserved almoust 100%.

Q: How can you picture a former Orthodox Greek church? please reconsider the POV, is interesting from historic point of view, and remember that the church was protected and preserved when the Constantinopole fall. CristianChirita 07:12, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Response by Lectiodifficilior:

Whenever I've seen those images, it has been in decidedly POV contexts. For example, this page has two examples of the genre, together with a lot of spleen directed at the "heathen Turk." Notably, the representations are not of the church as it was, but as it should be or at least in some alternate-reality universe ("Hagia Sophia idealized," "the cross restored", "as it might appear today"). I at least get the unsettling feeling that an "idealized" Istanbul street scene would include mass graves for all the Turks. Similarly, I found image you are posting on an extremely POV site here, together with the minarets reassembled together. The site writes:

(The image, on the right, is placed here on the doctrine of fair use, which allows even copyrighted images to be used in the service of commentary and criticism. I have my doubts about the PD nature of these two images.)

I think both the text and the companion image demonstrate conclusively that it is intended to show Hagia Sophia as it should be not as it was. Thus, in origin, the image is POV.

Origin aside, is it still useful as a way to picture the church "as it was"? I don't think so. If you tell the reader the minarets are added (that would be a good addition to the picture caption), how much trouble is he really going to have picturing it? It should also be noted that a number of other minor architectural features are also of post 1453 origin, mostly there to shore up the edifice against falling down.

Lastly, if we're going to admit this image, I vote we also admit one of the Fossati brothers' pictures of Hagia Sophia/Aya Sofya operating as a mosque, with the lamps, carpets, wooden dividers and etc. This would achive NPOV by balance. Lectiodifficilior 15:16, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Side note: The current image isn't so good. It's all trees and minarets. I don't think this is a POV issue—a tree-hugging Muslim perhaps? But it would be nice to get something that shows more of the structure. Lectiodifficilior

I'm not insisting in putting the image. I've my opinion that the image of the church how it was it is important. We agree to disagree. If you consider the religios considerations there will be a never ending discussion. But if you are interested of how the work was performed, then the image is interesting. And considering the quality of the two picture I must confess that the building with minarets is more beautifull. And the most important thing is that erasing the images from wiki is not solving the issue, letting the image on the discussion page and explaining why it is POV is solving the situation. CristianChirita 20:24, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree to agree to disagree. I don't like the provinance of that image, but I don't object in principle to a "reconstruction" image, particularly if the mosque interior is also presented. Sorry not to get back sooner. I was hoping others might have feelings on this topic. Even if we can agree on a compromise, I generally feel two people are too little to decide anything on Wikipedia. Does anyone else have feelings on this? Lectiodifficilior 29 June 2005 22:44 (UTC) You have proved that the image source is not ok. I hope that somone will make a reconstruction someday, maybe some request for images of the interior should be also usefull.CristianChirita 30 June 2005 07:14 (UTC)

I think that the above image settle the issue.CristianChirita 09:28, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The photoshopped image is not what it looked like in 1453. It still contains structural modifications made by Sinan and others to preserve the structure, and also includes elements added by the Latin Emperors, who I would think would produce greater bile in Greek nationalists, since at least the Ottomans went out of their way to preserve an individual Greek Millet. If you want a non-political projection of the earlier appearance of Hagia Sophia, go to the Byzantium 1200 site, which is excellent and devoid of the childish vitriol this issue seems to produce.

http://www.byzantium1200.com/hagia.html

- John in NYC

[edit] Photos

Agia Sofia, April 2002

It's actually quite difficult to get a decent wide-angle photo of Agia Sofia because of the density of the trees in the surrounding parkland. Here is one of mine which shows a little more the building than the one currently used.

On the other issue, I don't see that there is anything wrong of a representation of the building as it looked before 1453 provided it is clearly labelled as such. There is nothing anti-Islamic about this. After all it was built as church and was a church for 1,000 years. It only became a mosque when it was seized by force by the Ottomans. Adam 30 June 2005 07:33 (UTC)

Can the parked vans and such be cropped from the bottom before this goes onto the article? --Wetman 30 June 2005 23:16 (UTC)

I agree that they are not very sightly, but cropping the photo would erase the visual relationship between the church and the ground, and leave it floating above the treetops. The building is located in a modern city, and this is what it looks like. I think altering the image in the interests of beautification would be in effect an editorial statement about what ancient buildings "ought" to look like. Adam 30 June 2005 23:55 (UTC)

[edit] 100 Most Endangered Sites

I removed this tag, as this structure was misidentified as being on the list. The structure on the World Monuments watchlist is the Little Hagia Sophia, also in Istanbul. BrainyBroad 06:55, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

For those unfamiliar with this recent name (Turkish: Küçuk Ayasofya Camii), the church in question is Sts. Sergios and Bacchos. [14] --Valentinian 22:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

is the hagia sophia on the european or on the asia side of istanbul?

European Dsmdgold 15:21, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Modern Istanbul is larger than Byzantine Constantinople, which was in Europe alone. The parts of Istanbul today that were in Asia were cities like Chalcedon that were absorbed by Constantinople/Istanbul during the Turkish period.Yahnatan 15:54, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

what is hagia sophia! is it a church the capital of turkey what is it!

[edit] Edited article structure (not content)

I made a fairly major developmental edit to this article. Not that it's not an OK article, but it looks like it had been worked by several people (for which, my appreciation!) and when that happens the structure of an article can get a bit out of whack. I moved text around, but I deleted or changed very little text, just a word or two here and there to improve flow, mostly. The sole block of text that I removed, because I couldn't find a good place to put it back (also it's phrased a bit awkwardly) was:

In the following 400 years, after each successive big earthquake and large-scale city fire, new repairs and renovations of the Hagia Sophia took place, to conserve it until today.

Actualy with a re-phrasing that ought to go back in. I'm just not sure where.

To summarize my edit:

• Moved the "Description" section to the top. The top section had been "Construction" which discussed elements that had not yet been described.
• Noted that the "Description" and "Construction" section had some repeated information (e.g., the pendentives), but couldn't do too much about that. Both sections need the info. But a better writer than I could make the two sections more complementary.
• Deleted and created section headers as appropriate, leaving this structure:
  • 1 Description
  • 2 Construction
  • 3 History
  • 4 20th Century restoration
  • 5 Restoration controversies
• Tagged the last section for reference. Really, that's a very poor section as it stands, with no references. It sounds like somebody's unsourced sour grapes. I'm not saying that it IS, but that's what it sounds like. It should either be sourced or deleted, in my opinion.
• Moved around text within and among sections to make the article flow in chronological order, as much as possibe. And moved images to format OK with new text.

Herostratus 05:12, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More alternate spellings should be added

I can't edit this page myself, but it would be nice to have the following alternate spellings added as redirects:

• Aghia Sophia
• Aghia Sofia
• Agia Sophia

U are right. i made the redirects. Hectorian 00:17, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Benedict visit

Pope Benedict has just caused controversy in Turkey by kneeling down in the museum. He was viewed as trying to "reclaim" it as a church. Perhaps this incident could be addressed. Badagnani 15:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Haven't heard it yet... Waiting for the news and official statements, and then i guess the incident shall be adressed... Hectorian 15:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I made a mistake. The people on the news were speaking about Pope Paul VI's action in 1967. Benedict hasn't visited the site yet. Badagnani 00:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The name Sophia

I am not so sure that the description for Saint Sophia is correct

....Although it is sometimes called "Saint Sophia" in English, it is not named for a saint called Sophia - the Greek word sofia means "wisdom.".....

From Wikipedia elsewhere:

...(celebrated) on 30 Sept., "St. Sophia, widow, mother of the holy virgins, Faith, Hope and Charity". In some places, on 1 August, St. Sapientia (perhaps distinct from Sophia, see below) is also venerated. In the Eastern Church, the feast is kept on 17 September.

The Greek word for 'wise'/'wise one' is sophos. Sophia is a name from the feminine derivative sophi. Similar variations exist for the male equivalent. Churches in the Orthodox faith are named after saints (people usually martyred in the name of the faith) not concepts. The Greek word for saint is (phonetically and by direct transliteration) Agios (male) Agia (female). Therfore, by definition the Church of Agia Sophia is the church of Saint Sophia.

01 Dec 2006 157.140.3.203 13:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

OK. But I've never heard it described as other than the church of the "Holy Wisdom." Is it possible that the Greek words for "saint" and "holy" are very similar or even the same? They are in Spanish, I think. And also that Hagia Sophia could be an exception in how it is named, as it is exceptional in other ways. I'm just saying. Herostratus 01:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Hagia means "holy" in Greek, and is also the honorific given to saints. So in theory Hagia Sophia could mean either "Holy Wisdom" or "Saint Sophia", but it's usually taken to mean the former. --Delirium 06:06, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About the Restoration Contreversy

"Work has reportedly been purposely slow on the Hagia Sophia due to its important position and symbolism within the Eastern Orthodox Church. "

This is just a speculation most probably taken from a POV source. Yes Turkish restoration policies are terrible but it is not exclusive for Orthodox Christian artificats, same applies to Ottoman and Seljuk heritage in Turkey. Besides, why would Turkish authorities specifically leave Ayasofya alone with its fate when it is a major tourist attraction. Whoever added that sentence lacks good faith. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.102.104.48 (talk) 11:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC).

One question and possible correction. I was always under the impression that the mosaic with the two emperors (Justinian and Constantine) depicted Justinian offering Hagia sofia and Constantine offering the city of Constantinople (quite reasonable since it bears his name and the church was built as a symbol of the city and by extension the empire) not the temple of Solomon that to my knowledge he had no connection. Besides the picture looks more like a town than the temple of Solomon. Is there a inscription on the mosaic itself that explains this, or any historian of the time giving accurate information? I would like to edit the picture description if no one has an argument against it.

[edit] What Lies Beneath?

I foudnd particularly interesting the controversy concerning the scaffolding under the calligraphy covering the Pantocratour icon (apologies if that was spelt incorrectly),"assuming it still exists." That raises new questions: have some mosaics in Hagia Sofia decayed beneath the Ottoman additions, were they destroyed in some areas, or do they continue to hide beneath the plaster and calligraphy? Does anyone know?

P.S. If there are mosaics on the floor that cannot be exposed due to any opposition, were they icons? Surely it would be a blasphemous act in the eastern orthodox Church to step on sacred images? Or were they portraits of some kind or genre scenes? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.101.96.170 (talk) 06:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

The Pantocrator mosaic is located in the dome, so you wouldn't be stepping on the mosaic, rather you could look up at an image of Christ. I have misplaced the source, but ages ago I read a report about work done on the first quarter of the dome. Apparently, the remains of a pantocrator mosaic exists, but - as could be expected - it is damaged. The vast majority of the Christian imagery was painted over during the Ottoman period, although this didn't happen immediately. In the 17th century, travellers still reported seeing Christian images in the building so at least some of the images must have been covered rather poorly. In any case, the average (Christian) mosaic wasn't repaired for 400-500 years and many of them decayed during this time and began to loosen from the walls. In 1894, the city was struck by a serious earthquake and the most fragile mosaics simply detached from the walls and fell to the floor in a thousand pieces. Luckily, two Swiss brothers were renovating the building around 1850 and they were allowed by the Sultan to record what they found so sketches exist of many of the now-destroyed mosaics. Unfortunately, some of the sketches were made very quickly and somewhat poorly, so an exact reconstruction is not possible. Whenever the Fossati brothers had repaired a section of the walls, they painted over any mosaics again. The first real uncovering was made by an American team in the 1930s after the building had been converted to a museum. Occationally, mosaics are still rediscovered, and most notably a mosaic showing Emperor John V Palaiologos was discovered less than 10 years ago, although in very poor shape due to the earthquake mentioned above. In some parts of the building, very simple mosaics of crosses are still painted over, but I haven't heard about any other obvious candidates for a major find than the dome. The Fossati brothers recorded a large number of mosaics on the north and south tympana showing angels, patriarchs and fathers of the church but most of them must have been destroyed in the 1894 quake. The mosaic of John Chrysostom is one of the exceptions. In addition the Fossatis mentioned a large mosaic of a cross in one of the galleries and a mosaic over what they called "The door of the poor". I am not aware if any trace of either of these have been rediscovered. I can recommend two books: Mango, Cyril (1962). Materials for the study of the Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul, Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks and Teteriatnikov, Natalia B.; Mosaics of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul: The Fossati Restoration and the Work of the Byzantine Institute, Dumbarton Oaks, which you can read in full-text here [15]. You might also want to check out Whittlemore, Thomas: The mosaics of Haghia Sophia at Istanbul 1st -4th preliminary report. Work done 1931-1938, Oxford University Press, 1933-52. Valentinian ^{T / C} 13:19, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I've managed to find a link to the report mentioned above [16]. The text mentions mosaic finds dating from several periods, but - to be the Devil's advocate - the text doesn't explicitly mention the Pantocrator, so the text could be referring to the simple decorative patterns found on the ribs of the dome. If the Pantocrator mosaic is completely missing it must have been destroyed in the 1894 quake since the Fossati collection includes a drawing of the mosaic. Valentinian ^{T / C} 23:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Literally: Can We Not All Just Get Along?

I don't have a strong background in Byzantine history nor that of Turkish History, so this is just a personal comment on the current status of the Hagia Sophia. Religion is obviously a touchy subject the world over. Within religion lies the faith, inspiration, and strength of many peoples and these often come into conflict. With the Hagia Sophia, though originally Byzantine, we come to a crossroads where the beauty and devotion of both Christianity and Islam are depicted in such a building. I believe that both religions and associated cultures should be celebrated. There has to be a time when people stop looking at “my God” and “your God” and recognize the good in each other’s teachings. Of course this is an insurmountable task, but hope must start somewhere. -Travis 67.76.181.7 03:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restoration?

In the 1930s, Hagia Sofia was reportedly restored by members of the so-called American Byzantine Institute. Are there any societies dedicated to the restoration/preservation of this ancient, beautiful monument? From some other entries in this discussion, it seems that without any help from the Turkish government, such help is desperately needed? Is the American Byzantine Institute still existent, or is there a university somewhere that would help continue the restoration or preservation? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.101.96.121 (talk) 23:14, 23 February 2007 (UTC).

Why the "reportedly"? You can check for yourself in Teteriatnikov, Natalia B.; Mosaics of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul: The Fossati Restoration and the Work of the Byzantine Institute, Dumbarton Oaks (full text version here: [17]). The American Byzantine Institute was dissolved after the death of Mr. Whittlemore and its archives transferred to Dumbarton Oaks which is part of Harvard University. When the building was converted into a museum, the museum authorities seem to have accepted any help they could get, so this must be why the institute was able to work there for so long. The museum no longer receives aid the same way, and the situation has also become more complex since then. Many Christians would like to see the building restored completely, while some Muslims would like to see it return to being a mosque. Any way, it is a great pity that the museum is so short of cash. Good thing they started by fixing the roof. Valentinian ^{T / C} 00:22, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "So called" destroyed mosaics

Just show a proof, a single mosaic which was destroyed by Turks by their own will, by the rule of the Sultan. There is any, not a single one. If you can not prove that in a week, Im gonna change the article about mosaics.

Thank you.

3 days left, I've got no answer.--hnnvansier 12:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

If you're directing that address to me since I wrote most of the the paragraph in question, I copied much of the first line from the previous version, since material I've examined relates to the 17th century and later. I simply noticed that the statement in question had been unmodified several months, which is why I didn't examine this issue any closer. The paragraph grew bigger than I initially intended, but the previous version stating that the Fossati brothers had destroyed a large number of images in 1847-49 is complete nonsense. I've read detailed description of their work, so I added a little information about it. As I remember the description, the Fossatis removed one image which was beyond any chance of repair. In recent history, the biggest destruction was probably due to the 1894 quake. Regarding the four seraphim / cherubim; four of these images appear at least one Swedish depiction of the building's interior dating from the 1600s but two of them disappear on later depictions. The architecture of the building also makes it obvious that this group must originally have contained four images. So one way or the other, two of these images disappeared somewhere along the line. That the plastering of the bigger images wasn't completed in one go is also well documented by the accounts of Western travellers from the 16th - 18th century (Mango, "The Mosaics of Saint Sophia in Istanbul"). But the question about the building's fate in the first period of Ottoman rule is interesting. In this context, it would be interesting with some more information about quakes in Istanbul. If one quake trashed many of these images, another could have done the same, but be poorly recorded. Do you know any details regarding previous quakes? Repairs of the building might also have played in, if somebody felt he had to replace a larger section of masonry. But I very strongly doubt the story that Ottoman sultans routinely removed the plaster and repaired the mosaics. Valentinian ^{T / C} 13:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Most probably Sultans did not remove the plaster and repair the mosaics unless the plastic itself broke down. I agree with your writing above, but in the front page, the paragraph tells that Turks are the ones who destroyed the mosaics. It gives the idea that after the conquest, Turks removed the mosaics by their own will.

If we consider that age, 600 years ago, if that was another army who took the control of the Haghia Sophia, most probably they'd do more than just plastering the mosaics. And if it was a crusader army invading a Muslim state, Im sure they would remove every crescent, every Kuran and every writing about Allah and Muhammad from the mosques, ofcourse if they would not use the mosques as massacre places or burnt them down totally.

So, what I see in Highia Sophia is Turkish "mercy" for the Christian society. They could not live the biggest building in the city as a church, and a mosque can not have images inside, so they just plastered the mosaics, living them "alive" but "hidden". Thank you. --hnnvansier 18:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

When the images were covered up, I don't think it was the intention that the mosaics should have ever been revealed again - something which indeed puts Sultan Abdülmecid's permission to the Fossati brothers in perspective. Perhaps the explanation might be as simple as the state being short of funds, in which case simply plastering the images over would have been both the cheapest and easiest way of getting them out of sight. That is my 2 cents anyway, we'll probably never know for sure. It is unlikely that somebody would ever find a copy of a firman explaining when and why this was done. Valentinian ^{T / C} 22:12, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Problem here is, you are talking about the strongest King (Sultan) of that age. An army with 250.000 men. Ofcourse they had enough funds. But also, it is known that the Sultan Mehmed II was tolerated against Orthodox Church and what I believe is, they leave the mosaics under cover. They dont think that one they those mosaics would show up again, however they kept them. So, the article in Wikipedia is one sided.--hnnvansier 23:10, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I did know that Mehmet II had a large army, but I know little about how full his treasury was. An army of 100,000 men or more would in most countries completely drain the treasury of funds. Anyway, if you believe the article is incorrect or if you have more material, then update it accordingly. The entire article could still use a lot more material and better referencing. Valentinian ^{T / C} 08:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Most probably he had, 'cause Byzantium was just a city, Ottomans was a great Empire. Anyways, he had enough fund or not, that is not a point for the mosaics. 15-20 men were enough to remove them all, but he did not. --hnnvansier 19:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)