Posted on 07/25/2005 7:24:38 PM PDT by jec1ny
Fr. Anthony Chadwick has posted on his blog ( http://perso.wanadoo.fr/civitas.dei/blog_07-05.htm )an appeal to sign a petition to the European Union's Parliament. It calls for them to require Turkey to restore the great Byzantine Cathedral of Hagia Sophia to Christian use as a church, as a precondition for admission to the EU. I support this call and hope that all Christians (Eastern and Western alike) will join me in signing this petition. If you know of other places to post the link please pass it around. You may sign the petition at http://www.hagiasophiablog.com/mainpage.html
Ping
I think that we can join together on this one!
This is a huge building, very old, and to a degree "delicate". At the moment it serves as a museum ~ mostly of itself, but a museum nonetheless.
Istanbul is paying for the upkeep. Who will pay if it is turned into a church?
The question is irrelevant. The church was built by Christians and stolen from them by force of arms. If Turkey would offer it to the Ecumenical Patriarch I am sure that he would come up with the funds to upkeep it. Such a move would cause no damage to the Muslims since it is no longer used as a mosque.
Islam claims that it is a religion of peace and diversity. What better way to prove it? If Turkey truly wants to join the Western nations in the EU then they must be held to the same standards. Christians in Turkey should have the same rights and freedoms as Muslims in the EU.
I also want to emphasize the fact that Hagia Sophia is no longer being used as a mosque. If it were then then the Muslims could claim that it would be unjust to deprive them of a place of worship. As it is, no harm would come to any Muslim worshipers.
And after the Hagia Sophia is returned to Christians, let's pressure our dear allies in Saudi Arabia to get their asses in gear and get cracking on permission for us to build a new cathedral!
There's a giant Islamic Mosque and Cultural Center in Rome.
Where's the cathedral in Riyadh?
I don't know about everyone else, but we should all be damn sick and tired of bending over backward (and sometimes forward) for the "great peaceful religion."
You wanna show great?
You wanna show peaceful?
Then, RECIPROCATION !!!
Get that cathedral built in Saudi Arabia sometime before next Ramadan, or we turn your mosque in Rome over to the Missionaries of Charity!
Ditto that!
...I wonder how many sausage cook-offs it would take to pay for that...hmmmm....
What a lovely gesture! I don't know who Fr. Chadwick is, but I do thank him from the bottom of my soul.
I LOVE THIS IDEA!!!! Awhile back the Holy Father - Pope John Paul (Martyr) the Great - gave the Patriarch of Constantinople a church in Rome. I think it only fit and proper and just that the Hagia Sophia be given to us Catholics as our church in Istanbul.
Btw at the time of the fall of Constantinople (1453) the Greeks were in union with Rome and thus the Hagia Sophia was actually a Catholic church!
The same places of worship continued in use and few sound structures were ever knocked down.
What I wonder is why, if their practice was to knock down Christian churches and put up mosques on the site, the Moslems left Hagia Sofia alone (for the most part), and even preserved the statuary?
Do you suspect that both the Moslems and the Christians in Spain were a better cut of human being than those in the East?
Their care can be incredibly expensive, and even back when it was new Hagia Sofia was a serious drain on the tax resources of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Taking care of it really isn't something a small Greek Orthodox congregation should plan on. BTW, I am presuming the modern practice of the congregation OWNING the church buildings will be continued and no one wants to go back to the old, discredited Western Church way, right?
""Question ~ how many parishioners can you guarantee for Sunday Mass?"
A good and relevant question it seems to me. Compared to how things were in 1900, Istanbul boasts very few Christians anymore.
When the Roman Emperor gave the "Ecumenical" tag to the Patriarch, he meant that this bishop was imperial, the bishop of the imperial city. That ended in 1453.
The imperial Patriarch is the least these days of all of the Eastern bishops. He's the top dog by custom and by established canon, but only in an honorific sense.
To "rehab" Hagia Sophia as a Christian cathedral is, at this time, an incredible waste of money.
Instead, let's demand that Turkey return all of Cyprus to the Greeks. Better yet, let's demand that all Turks get off the island. And then let's demand the right of Christians to evangelize in Turkey. If we could do that, we could create a situation whereby Hagia Sophia would again at least be useful.
EU admission must necessarily carry with it guarantees that Christians, of all types, may evangelize in Anatolia, not just Istanbul.
"EU admission must necessarily carry with it guarantees that Christians, of all types, may evangelize in Anatolia, not just Istanbul."
That would certainly be progress. Islam cannot possibly survive in that sort of atmosphere.
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