Turkey the home of the seven churches from the Book of Revelations, has left them all to ruins. Now Turkey has converted another U.N. World Heritage Site Church into a Mosque for Islamic worship much to the dismay of the Christian World.
What can only be considered a form of Islamization is the forced conversion of ancient Christian Churches into mosques.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has now formally converted a former Byzantine church in Istanbul as a mosque and opened it for Islamic religious practices.
This comes four years after his government had designated the ancient Christian Church to be a Muslim house of prayer, despite criticism from neighbouring Greece and Christians living in Turkey.
Turkey’s Anti-Christ Campaign
Turkey has been on a campaign to forcibly convert Christian houses of worship into islamic centres which can only br described as the work of anti-Christ behaviour.
The Erdogan regime formally converted The Church of St. Saviour in Chora, known as Kariye in Turkish, into a mosque in 2020.
Soon after that Church was converted it similarly turned Istanbul’s Christian landmark Haghia Sophia into a Muslim house of prayer.
Both conversions drew praise from Muslim fanatics but criticism from Christians Turks, as well as Greece and other countries.
These nations had urged Turkey to protect the important Byzantine-era monuments rather than systematically converting them as form of “ethnic cleansing”.
Both of the Christian based buildings are listed as U.N. World Heritage Sites according to sources.
The Haghia Sophia, which was a Christian Church for many many centuries and then a mosque for a few centuries after that.
The Church of St. Saviour in Chora, however had operated as a museum for decades before it was ordered be converted into a mosque.
The Chora’s formal launch as a mosque, however, was delayed as the structure underwent major restoration for it to become modernized.
Ceremonies Marking Conversions
Erdogan remotely presided over a ceremony marking the opening of The Church of St. Saviour in Chora, as well as other recently-restored structures, from a conference centre located inside his Ankara palace complex.
“May it bring good fortune,” Erdogan stated during the televised ceremonial event.
Musa Tombul a well known Turkish Academic was among the first worshippers to pray inside.
“I have been waiting for its opening for four years,” Tombul told the state-run Anadolu Agency.
“I was honoured to pray in such a place.” Musa Tombul stated after. his visit to the house of prayer.
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“We thank God for showing us these days,” Anadolu quoted another worshiper, Haydar Senbahar, as saying. “Hopefully, we will come here from time to time and perform our prayers.”
The once revered Church of St. Saviour in Chora, is situated near Istanbul’s ancient city walls, and famed for its elaborate mosaics and frescoes.
The stunning ancient Christian building dates back to the fourth century before the prophet of Islam was born and before Islam ever existed.
Although The Church of St. Saviour in Chora current structural presentation took on its current form in the 11th-12th centuries.
The structure had served as a mosque during the Ottoman rule before being transformed into a museum in 1945.
Critics of Turkey
Greece had criticized the Turkish government’s decision to turn it back into a mosque, accusing Ankara of “insulting the character” of another World Heritage Site.
The decisions to transform Haghia Sophia and The Church of St. Saviour in Chora back into mosques were seen as moves geared to consolidate the conservative islamic forces inside Turkey.
As well as show religious power while pandering to the support base of Erdogan’s ruling party amid an economic downturn.
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In 2020, Erdogan joined hundreds of worshipers for the first Muslim prayers in Hagia Sophia in 86 years after the conversion.
In dictatorial fashion Erdogan brushed aside international criticism and calls for the monument to be kept as a museum or returned to a Christian Church as it was founded.
It is estimated that as many as 350,000 Turks took part in the prayers outside the structure.
