As can be heard, when His Holiness sits to sign the Visitors’ Book, the call to prayer can be heard. Aya Sofya is no longer strictly kept as a Museum in a secular, ex-Islamic republic. When our Vice Chairman, Fr Mark Woodruff, visited the week beforehand, the Call to Prayer from the Sultanahmet Mosque was answered from one of the minarets at Aya Sofya. It is known that President Erdoghan regards it as a place of worship and rumours that it will be restored as such are strong, and its history as a building from which the worship of BOTH Christians and Muslims is excluded will end. Another rumour is that the deal could be that the nearby Church of Hagia Eirene, in the first courtyard of the Topkapi Palace, will be restored to the use of the Orthodox. It would take an immense amount of work but, even then, they would never own it. Meanwhile, on the highest hill on the opposite Asian shore of the Bosphorus, Erdoghan is planning a larger mosque than any already in Istanbul – with public funds in a secular republic. The state sponsorship and recovered confidence of public Islam in Turkey is notable.
It is interesting that while the Pope was accompanied by Cardinal Koch as president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, there appeared to be no Byzantine Catholic ecumenists in his party.
▶ Pope Francis inTurkey – Visit to Saint Sofia Museum and Sultan Ahmet Mosque – 2014.11.29 – YouTube