Turkey's Hagia Sophia will open to visitors ... Pope Francis saying he was “very distressed”. Hagia Sophia was a cathedral for nearly 1,000 years before being converted into a mosque in ...

“I think of Hagia Sophia, and I am very saddened,” Pope Francis said towards the end of his midday sermon in Saint Peter's Square. It was the Vatican's first reaction to Turkey's decision to ...

A woman poses for a selfie in front of Hagia Sophia, or Ayasofya-i Kebir Camii, which the Turkish president declared to be open to Muslim worship after a court ruling, in Istanbul, Turkey ...

The Turkish Ministry of Culture is undertaking a cleaning program of the underground spaces of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, aiming to make them accessible to the public. The project includes the ...

Amberin Zaman speaks this week to Tugba Tanyeri Erdemir, a Turkish academic, about the current status of the Haghia Sophia, the 6th century Byzantine cathedral that was converted from a museum ...

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has not yet been notified by Turkey ... Hagia Sophia is a Byzantine-era architectural monument. The cathedral was ...