New provocative statements have been made by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, from inside Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
A few days before the greatest celebration of Orthodoxy, Easter, the Turkish President was found inside Hagia Sophia, accompanied by his wife Emines, celebrating the opening of a cultural exhibition.
Upon entering he greeted the crowd with “Rabia", four fingers, which is the salute of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, which he has now adopted.
In statements inside the church, he said, "unfortunately those who have a more Byzantine mentality than the Byzantium, and westerner than the West, do not know the value of the heritage left by our ancestors." He accused Europe of destroying Turkish culture saying, "they destroyed our culture, more than the West, those who have the western mindset."
He also accused Europe of "turning our mosques into museums. Like this space. They turned our mosques into stables," he said of Hagia Sophia, which for almost 1,000 years was the largest Greek Orthodox Christian church in the world.