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Ideology and symbolism in religious spaces

The case of Hagia Sophia

January 23, 2021
Saturday, 14:00 GMT
Tickets are free, registration is essential through Eventbrite.


For their next webinar, BATAS has asked the distinguished art historian Professor Filiz Yenişehirlioğlu of Koç University, Istanbul, to talk about the past and present of Hagia Sophia, in the context of its long history as a building sacred to two world faiths and its recent conversion from a museum back to a mosque.

This talk will focus on:
• the construction of Hagia Sophia and its symbolism during the Byzantine period
• Hagia Sophia as a Royal Mosque during the Ottoman period
• Hagia Sophia as a museum after the foundation of the Turkish Republic
• the current reconversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque
• the symbolism of Hagia Sophia/Ayasofya in Orthodox Christian and Islamic popular culture as a common cultural heritage - with some reference to other historical examples of conversion or adaptation of religious spaces between different faiths

The Zoom details needed to access the webinar will follow later in an email from BATAS (events@batas.org.uk) up to 4 days before the event.


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