Turkey’s Decision to Turn Hagia Sophia Into a Mosque Dismays Christians, Neighbors, Historians

ISTANBUL—With its huge dome and towering minarets, Hagia Sophia is to humanity what the Grand Canyon is to geology: an open-air e-book that concentrates virtually 1 and a 50 % millennia of record as the successive coronary heart of Orthodox Christian and Muslim empires, punctuated by ransacking, fires and earthquakes.

But by determining on Friday to renovate again into a total-fledged mosque a setting up that has been a museum since the 1930s and has grow to be a powerful symbol of ecumenical relations, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan despatched…