ANKARA, Turkey — The president of Turkey on Friday formally converted Istanbul’s sixth-century Hagia Sophia back into a mosque and declared it open up for Muslim worship, hrs right after a significant court annulled a 1934 selection that had built the spiritual landmark a museum.

The selection sparked deep dismay among the Orthodox Christians. Originally a cathedral, Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque soon after Istanbul’s conquest by the Ottoman Empire but experienced been a museum for the past 86 several years, drawing thousands and thousands of travellers every year.

There was jubilation outdoors the terracotta-hued structure with its cascading domes and four minarets. Dozens of people awaiting the court’s ruling chanted “Allah is terrific!” when the information broke. A significant crowd later prayed outside it.

In the funds of Ankara, legislators stood and applauded as the decision was study in Parliament.

Turkey’s high administrative courtroom threw its bodyweight powering a petition brought by a religious group and annulled the 1934 Cabinet selection that turned the site into a museum. In several hours, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a decree handing more than Hagia Sophia to Turkey’s Spiritual Affairs Presidency.

In a televised handle to the country, Erdogan reported the very first prayers inside Hagia Sofia would be held on July 24, and he urged respect for the determination.

“I underline that we will open Hagia Sophia to worship as a mosque by preserving its character of humanity’s typical cultural heritage,” he said, introducing: “It is Turkey’s sovereign ideal to make a decision for which goal Hagia Sofia will be made use of.”

He rejected the thought that the choice ends Hagia Sophia’s status as a composition that provides faiths with each other.

“Like all of our other mosques, the doors of Hagia Sophia will be open to all, locals or foreigners, Muslims and non-Muslims,” Erdogan claimed.

Erdogan had spoken in favor of turning the massively symbolic UNESCO Globe Heritage web-site back into a mosque inspite of widespread global criticism, which include from U.S. and Orthodox Christian leaders, who experienced urged Turkey to continue to keep its position as a museum symbolizing solidarity among the faiths and cultures.

The shift threatens to deepen tensions with neighboring Greece, whose primary minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, condemned the conclusion as an affront to Hagia Sophia’s ecumenical character.

“It is a determination that offends all individuals who realize Hagia Sophia as an indispensable section of world cultural heritage” Mitsotakis stated. “This choice clearly affects not only Turkey’s relations with Greece but also its relations with the European Union, UNESCO and the globe group as a full.”

In Greece’s 2nd-biggest metropolis, Thessaloniki, protesters collected outside a church that is modeled on Hagia Sophia and bears the very same identify. They chanted, “We’ll light candles in Hagia Sophia!” and held Greek flags and Byzantine banners.

Cyprus “strongly condemns Turkey’s steps on Hagia Sophia in its exertion to distract domestic belief and calls on Turkey to respect its international obligations,” tweeted Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides.

Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy head of the international affairs committee in the Russian upper household of parliament, identified as the motion “a error.”

“Turning it into a mosque will not do anything at all for the Muslim planet. It does not provide nations alongside one another, but on the opposite delivers them into collision,” he said.

The debate hits at the coronary heart of Turkey’s spiritual-secular divide. Nationalist and conservative teams in Turkey have very long yearned to hold prayers at Hagia Sophia, which they regard as aspect of the Muslim Ottoman legacy. Other individuals believe that it really should continue being a museum, as a symbol of Christian and Muslim solidarity.

“It was a composition that introduced collectively both equally Byzantine and Ottoman histories,” explained Zeynep Kizildag, a 27-calendar year-old social employee, who did not help the conversion. “The final decision to switch it into a mosque is like erasing 1,000 decades of heritage, in my belief.”

Garo Paylan, an ethnic Armenian member of Turkey’s Parliament tweeted that it was “a unfortunate working day for Christians (and) for all who feel in a pluralist Turkey.”

“The selection to convert Hagia Sophia into a mosque will make everyday living a lot more challenging for Christians right here and for Muslims in Europe,” he wrote. “Hagia Sophia was a symbol of our wealthy heritage. Its dome was major enough for all.”

The group that brought the case to courtroom had contested the legality of the 1934 conclusion by the modern Turkish republic’s secular authorities ministers, arguing the developing was the own assets of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II, who conquered Istanbul in 1453.

“I was not stunned at all that the court docket weighed to sanction Erdogan’s moves because these days Erdogan will get from Turkish courts what Erdogan wants,” explained Soner Cagaptay, of the Washington Institute.

“Erdogan needs to use Hagia Sophia’s conversion into a mosque to rally his ideal-wing base,” said Cagaptay, the writer of “Erdogan’s Empire.” “But I really do not consider this tactic will operate. I think that shorter of economic growth, absolutely nothing will restore Erdogan’s attractiveness.”

In Paris, the United Nations cultural entire body, UNESCO, explained Hagia Sophia is section of the Historic Places of Istanbul, a house inscribed on UNESCO’s Earth Heritage Checklist as a museum.

“States have an obligation to be certain that modifications do not affect the `outstanding common value’ of inscribed sites on their territories,” Director-General Audrey Azoulay claimed.

The Istanbul-based mostly Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, deemed the non secular chief of the world’s Orthodox Christians, warned previous month that the building’s conversion into a mosque “will flip tens of millions of Christians throughout the earth towards Islam.”

On Friday, Archbishop Elpidophoros of The usa reported the selection runs counter to the vision of secular Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk “who recognized that Hagia Sophia really should serve all Turkey’s people and indeed the full earth.”

“The times of conquest should stay a shut chapter of our collective histories,” he explained to The Associated Push, including that Turkey’s govt “can continue to choose wisely” but permitting Hagia Sophia keep on being a “monument to all civilizations and universal values.”

Patriarch Kirill, the chief of the Russian Orthodox Church, identified as for “prudence” and the preservation of the “current neutral status” for the Hagia Sophia, which he claimed was a person of Christianity’s “devoutly commemorated symbols.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said past thirty day period that the landmark ought to stay a museum to serve as bridge concerning faiths and cultures. His responses drew a rebuke from Turkey’s Overseas Ministry, which explained Hagia Sophia was a domestic issue of Turkish nationwide sovereignty.

Erdogan, a devout Muslim, has regularly made use of the Hagia Sophia situation to drum up assistance for his Islamic-rooted social gathering.

Some Islamic prayers have been held in the museum in modern many years. In a important symbolic transfer, Erdogan recited the opening verse of the Quran there in 2018.

Built underneath Byzantine Emperor Justinian, Hagia Sophia was the most important seat of the Eastern Orthodox church for generations, exactly where emperors were topped amid ornate marble and mosaic decorations.

The minarets had been included afterwards, and the constructing was turned into an imperial mosque pursuing the 1453 Ottoman conquest of Constantinople — the metropolis that is now named Istanbul.

The constructing opened its doorways as a museum in 1935, a yr following the Council of Ministers’ choice.

Mosaics depicting Jesus, Mary and Christian saints that ended up plastered about in line with Islamic guidelines were being uncovered through arduous restoration function for the museum. Hagia Sophia was the most common museum in Turkey last 12 months, drawing more than 3.7 million readers.