The Eye of Sophia

I am standing outside of Hagia of Sophia (Eye of Sophia) with my good friend Cathy.  She lives in the capitol city of Turkey, Ankara.  As a "worker" she is learning the Turkish language.  We were roommates in Juneau, Alaska.

The Hagia of Sophia in Constantinople (now Istanbul) was dedicated to the Emperor Constantius is 360 and was called the "Great Church."  Then in 1453 the church was converted to a mosque.  It stayed this way until the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century.  Now it is a museum. 

LeAnn, Cathy and I are truly tourists. 

Look at the intricate stone work.

It is so vast and huge inside.  This is just the upper half of the building.  The lower half is filled with tourists like me!

I love the beautiful iron work of this gate.

On the second floor and you see how vast this building is.

A picture of Jesus survived the mosque.

This is what the original artwork looks like.

Here you can see where a cross used to be.  When the Eye of Sophia became a mosque, the Muslim people removed anything that related to Christianity.