Hagia Sophia's Christian icons to be covered with curtains during prayers
The 1,500-year-old Byzantine structure, which functioned as a museum for nearly 100 years, will reopen as a working mosque this week.
The Hagia Sophia will cover some of its Christian mosaics with curtains, Turkey’s presidential spokesperson said, ahead of the contested landmark’s reopening as a working mosque this week.
“Our goal is to avoid harming the frescoes, icons and the historic architecture of the edifice,” Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said during a TV interview Sunday.
“Currently, we are working on covering them with a curtain [during prayers],” he said.
In a controversial move earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared the iconic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul a mosque to be used for prayers beginning this Friday, July 24.
