Erdogan converts another historic church into a mosque - AL-MONITOR: The Middle Eastʼs leading independent news source since 2012

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Tourists visit the Chora (Kariye) Church Museum, the 11th century church of St. Savior on August 21, 2020 in Istanbul, Turkey.

Erdogan's Byzantine church conversion roils Greece ahead of PM's Turkey visit

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A couple visits the site of the 13th century Haghia Sophia Church in Trabzon January 25, 2007. This sleepy Black Sea town is struggling to understand how it could produce youngsters capable of killing in cold blood. Police have charged Ogun Samast, 17, from Trabzon with the murder of prominent Turkish Armenian editor Hrant Dink, a year after another teenager shot dead an Italian Catholic priest as he prayed in his church in the same city. Picture taken January 25, 2007. To match feature TURKEY-NATIONALIS

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People gather to celebrate outside the Hagia Sophia museum on July 10, 2020 in Istanbul after a top Turkish court revoked the sixth-century Hagia Sophia's status as a museum, clearing the way for it to be turned back into a mosque. - The Council of State, the country's highest administrative court which on July 2 debated a case brought by a Turkish NGO, cancelled a 1934 cabinet decision and ruled the UNESCO World Heritage site would be reopened to Muslim worshipping. The sixth-century Istanbul building -- a

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ISTANBUL, TURKEY - JULY 02: Tourists visit Istanbul's famous Hagia Sophia on July 02, 2020 in Istanbul, Turkey. Turkey's Council of State will begin a review today of the building's status and the possibility of changing it from a museum, back into a mosque upon the request of nationalist and religious groups. Throughout it's history the UNESCO World Heritage site has served as a Byzantine Cathedral, a mosque under Ottoman rule and now a museum, after a 1934 decision led by modern Turkey's founder Mustafa K

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