More than 300 scholars across the world have expressed their concern regarding Turkey’s intention to change the UN world heritage status of Hagia Sophia from a museum and convert it into a mosque.
In an open letter, the scholars of Byzantine and Ottoman art and culture said they were not writing to protest an action that has not yet been taken, but “to clarify the concern that we share, on the basis of the information currently available to us.”
The letter continues:
In our opinion, the central question is not, “Should Hagia Sophia be a museum or a mosque?” The central question is rather, “How can we best care for Hagia Sophia?” In other words, we draw a distinction between function and stewardship. We are concerned that the ongoing dispute over function hinders the development of a management strategy commensurate to the scale of the challenges: preservation of the historical fabric and continued visibility of the works of art of all periods, Byzantine and Ottoman; responsible management of mass tourism; and protection against the threat of earthquake.
From 1453 until 1934, Hagia Sophia served as a congregational mosque, and was administered by a pious endowment (vakıf). After the declaration of the Turkish Republic (1923), jurisdiction over all such entities was assumed by a new government ministry, the Directorate General of Foundations. Hagia Sophia continued in use as a mosque throughout the 1920s, but in 1931 restorers began to reveal the mosaics of the interior. The spectacular success of their work convinced the Turkish Council of Ministers (1934) to transfer jurisdiction over the building from the Directorate General of Foundations to the Ministry of Education.
This change in jurisdiction coincided with a change in function, through which the building was closed to worship. Both jurisdiction and function, however, have continued to evolve. Hagia Sophia is today administered by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, as the administrative successor to the Ministry of Education. At the same time, the function of the building has expanded to include increasingly visible expressions of Muslim piety. Since 1991, there has been a room dedicated to Muslim prayer within the complex. Since 2016, Hagia Sophia has been served by a full-time imam, the call to prayer has sounded from the minarets, and Qur’anic readings and prayers have taken place within during the annual observation of Laylat al-Qadr.
Thus, in a certain sense, Hagia Sophia is currently functioning as both a museum and a mosque. As far as we are aware, the expansion of this latter function has not resulted in damage to the building or obstruction of its works of art. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism remains a responsible steward.
At the same time, prominent voices in Turkey have long argued that the transfer of jurisdiction to the Ministry was unlawful. They claim that the Turkish state did not have the right to “secularize” Hagia Sophia in 1934, since pious endowments are perpetual and inviolable. According to this argument, the rightful custodian of the building is the Directorate General of Foundations.
In recent years, the Directorate General has assumed control of other Byzantine monuments and reopened them to Muslim worship. One prominent example is another Hagia Sophia, this one in Trabzon on the Black Sea, whose proper administration has been contested since 2013. An effort to re-open the building to Muslim prayer included construction of an elaborate set of screens to obscure the Byzantine frescoes. Less publicized, but of more lasting harm, was the campaign of restoration carried out by the Directorate General on Hagia Sophia in Vize (Thrace) in 2006, which resulted in substantial damage to the historical fabric of the building.
Our concern is that the current conflict, until now only a “war of words,” could result in similarly careless treatment of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul: that historical and archaeological evidence could be damaged, and works of art concealed.
Hagia Sophia is too beautiful a monument and too precious a historical document to serve as a pawn in regional politics. Successive Byzantine, Ottoman, and Turkish governments have protected it against the ravages of time and thus maintained its significance not only for themselves, but also for those to come in the future — including all of us. It is a matter of vital concern to us as scholars of Byzantine and Ottoman art and culture that the current Turkish government continue this tradition of responsible stewardship.
Respectfully,
Iman R. Abdulfattah, CUNY/NYU
Evangelia Achladi, University of Bosphorus
Eirini Afentoulidou, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Elizabeth Agaiby, University of Divinity, Melbourne
Panagiotis A. Agapitos, Max-Planck Institute, Frankfurt
Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ
Ladan Akbarnia, The San Diego Museum of Art
Aslıhan Akışık, Wolfson College, University of Oxford
Engin Akyürek, Koç Üniversitesi
Nabil Al-Tikriti, University of Mary Washington
Joseph Alchermes, Connecticut College
Juan Antonio Álvarez-Pedrosa, Universidad Complutense Madrid
Josep Amengual i Batle, Biblioteca Balear, Mallorca
Yasmine Amory, Ghent University
Benjamin Anderson, Cornell University
Spyridon Antonopoulos, City University London
Achim Arbeiter, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen
Nisa Ari, University of Houston
Tülay Artan, Sabancı University
Annika Asp, University of Birmingham
Kameliya Atanasova, Washington and Lee University
Marie-France Auzépy, Université Paris 8
Levon Avdoyan, The Library of Congress
Michele Bacci, Universität Freiburg
Heather A. Badamo, University of California, Santa Barbara
Jennifer Ball, City University of New York
Thomas M. Banchich, Canisius College, Buffalo
Charles Barber, Princeton University
Karen Barkey, University of California, Berkeley
Darius Baronas, Lithuanian Institute of History, Vilnius
Omniya Abdel Barr, Victoria and Albert Museum
Sarah Bassett, Indiana University
Mustafa Batman, Bogazici University
Franco Benucci, Università di Padova
Floris Bernard, Ghent University
Ioanna Bitha, Research Centre for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art, Academy of Athens
Marie-Hélène Blanchet, CNRS (Paris)
Louise Blanke, University of Edinburgh
Patricia Blessing, Princeton University
Elizabeth S. Bolman, Case Western Reserve University
Marina Bordne, Heidelberg University
Antje Bosselmann-Ruickbie, Justus-Liebig-Universität, Gießen
Anne Boud’hors, Centre national de la recherche scientifique
Emmanuel C. Bourbouhakis, Princeton University
Ra’anan Boustan, Princeton University
Grigor Boykov, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Wolfram Brandes, Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen
Sarah T. Brooks, James Madison University
Nedim Buyukyuksel, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris
Suna Çağaptay, University of Cambridge and Bahçeşehir University
Claude Calame, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
Averil Cameron, University of Oxford
Merih Danali Cantarella, Wake Forest University
Giancarlo Casale, European University Institute
Sinem Casale, University of Minnesota
Marica Cassis, University of Calgary
Manuel Antonio Castiñeiras González, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Annemarie Weyl Carr, Southern Methodist University
Jean-Michel Carrié, EHESS Paris
Anne-Laurence Caudano, University of Winnipeg
Reinhart Ceulemans, KU Leuven
Antonia Gatward Cevizli, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London
Angelos Chaniotis, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
Sotirios Charalampous, Ministry of Culture and Sports, Greece
Michail Chatzidakis, Humboldt University, Berlin
Nina Chichinadze, Ilia State University, Tbilisi
Mehreen Chida-Razvi, SOAS, University of London
Christina Christoforatou, Baruch College, City University of New York
Juan Signes Codoñer, University of Valladolid
Barbara Crostini, Uppsala University
James Crow, University of Edinburgh
Jon C. Cubas Díaz, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen
Anthony Cutler, Pennsylvania State University
Vladimir Cvetkovic, University of Belgrade
Beatrice Daskas, Ca’ Foscari University, Venice
Manuela De Giorgi, Università del Salento
Aitor Fernández Delgado, Universidad de Alcalá
Ceren Demirton, Philipps University, Marburg
Kristoffel Demoen, Ghent University, Belgium
Nathan S. Dennis, University of San Francisco
Michael Dermitzakis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Fahri Dikkaya, TED University, Ankara
Stefanos Dimitriadis, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster
Heidemarie Doganalp-Votzi, University of Vienna
Eugenia Drakopoulou, National Hellenic Research Foundation
Anastasia Drandaki, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Ivan Drpić, University of Pennsylvania
John M. Duffy, Harvard University
Antony Eastmond, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London
- Asa Eger, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Susanna Elm, University of California, Berkeley
Ayse Ercan, Columbia University
- Osman Erden, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University
Uffe Holmsgaard Eriksen, University of Southern Denmark
Olga Etinhof, Russian State University for the Humanities
Rebecca Stephens Falcasantos, Amherst College
Vera von Falkenhausen, Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”
Mary Farag, Princeton Theological Seminary
Antonio Enrico Felle, Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro”
Carla Varela Fernandes, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Elizabeth Fisher, George Washington University
Ivan Foletti, Masaryk University
Christian Förstel, Bibliothèque nationale de France
Vicky Foskolou, University of Crete
Georgia Frank, Colgate University
Peter Frankopan, University of Oxford
Stig Frøyshov, University of Oslo
Miguel Gallés, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Fani Gargova, University of Vienna
Niels Gaul, University of Edinburgh
Anđela Gavrilović, University of Belgrade
Maria Gerolymatou, National Hellenic Research Foundation
Sharon Gerstel, University of California, Los Angeles
Elina Gertsman, Case Western Reserve University
Ludovico V. Geymonat, Louisiana State University
Nicolae Gheorghita, National University of Music, Bucharest
Federica Gigante, University of Oxford
Adam Goldwyn, North Dakota State University
Rachel Goshgarian, Lafayette College
Rossitsa Gradeva, American University in Bulgaria
Susan L. Graham, Saint Peter’s University
Olga Gratziou, University of Crete
Geoffrey Greatrex, University of Ottawa
Jean-Pierre Grélois, chercheur indépendant
Marc De Groote, Ghent University
Heather Grossman, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Christiane Gruber, University of Michigan
Encarnación Motos Guirao, Universidad de Granada
Maria Hadjipavlou, University of Cyprus
John F. Haldon, Princeton University
Nikifor Haralampiev, National Academy of Art, Sofia
Stefan Harkov, University of Shumen
Rabia Harmansah, University of Cologne
Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Brown University
Ayşe Henry, Bilkent University
Judith Herrin, King’s College London
Ernest Marcos Hierro, Universitat de Barcelona
Cecily Hilsdale, McGill University
Martin Hinterberger, University of Cyprus
Frederic Hitzel, CNRS-EHESS, Paris
Paavo Hohti, University of Helsinki
Renata Holod, University of Pennsylvania
Brad Hostetler, Kenyon College
Etienne Hubert, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris
Anna Maria Ieraci Bio, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Zeynep Inankur, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University
Sergey Ivanov, Russian National Research University — Higher School of Economics
Hugh Jeffery, University of Edinburgh
Elizabeth M. Jeffreys, University of Oxford
Kaelin Jewell, The Barnes Foundation
Mark J. Johnson, Brigham Young University
Catherine Jolivet-Lévy, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris
Jacqueline Jung, Yale University
Nikolas P. Kakkoufa, Columbia University
Veronica Kalas, independent scholar, USA
Ioli Kalavrezou, Harvard University
Gül Kale, Carleton University, Canada
Kevin Kalish, Bridgewater State University
Sophia Kalopissi-Verti, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Ceyda Karamursel, SOAS, University of London
Romanos Karanos, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology
Anna Kartsonis, University of Washington
Armen Kazaryan, Research Institute of the Theory and History of Architecture and Urban Planning, Moscow
Bente Kiilerich, University of Bergen
Young Richard Kim, University of Illinois, Chicago
Dale Kinney, Bryn Mawr College
Holger A. Klein, Columbia University
Tia Kolbaba, Rutgers University
Athina Kolia-Dermitzaki, National and Kapodastrian University of Athens
Elias Kolovos, University of Crete
Fotini Kondyli, University of Virginia
Kader Konuk, Universität Duisburg-Essen
Elif Koparal, Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi
Yavuz Köse, University of Vienna
Dickran Kouymjian, California State University, Fresno
Dimitrios Krallis, Simon Fraser University
Klaus Kreiser, Otto-Friedrich-Universität, Bamberg
Carol H. Krinsky, New York University
Derek Krueger, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
- Harun Küçük, University of Pennsylvania
Demetrios Kyritses, University of Crete
Andrea Olsen Lam, Pepperdine University
Anaïs Lamesa, DIM Matériaux anciens et patrimoniaux/CNRS
Maximilian Lau, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo
Marc Lauxtermann, University of Oxford
Mariana Lazar, National Museum Controceni, Romania
Stavros Lazaris, CNRS
Sean Leatherbury, University College Dublin
Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Florin Leonte, Palacký University of Olomouc
Juan Lewis, University of Edinburgh
Alexei Lidov, Lomonosov Moscow State University and Russian Academy of Arts
Alexander Lifshits, National Research University “Higher School of Economics,” Moscow
Alexander Lingas, City University of London
Santo Lucà, Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”
Byron MacDougall, Brown University
Christopher MacEvitt, Dartmouth College
Carlos Machado, University of St Andrews
Jacek Maj, Collegium Artium
George P. Majeska, University of Maryland
George Manginis, Benaki Museum
Maria Rosaria Marchionibus, Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale
Przemysław Marciniak, University of Silesia in Katowice
Moysés Marcos, California State University, Northridge
Sergei Mariev, LMU Munich and JGU Mainz
Vasileios Marinis, Yale University
Dragoljub Marjanović, University of Belgrade
Athanasios Markopoulos, University of Athens
Miodrag Marković, University of Belgrade
Elizabeth Marlowe, Colgate University
Inmaculada Pérez Martín, Consejo superior de investigaciones científicas
Maria Mavroudi, University of California, Berkeley
Renaat Meesters, Ghent University / KU Leuven
Julie Meisami, University of Oxford
Andrew Mellas, St Andrew’s Theological College, Sydney
Mati Meyer, Open University of Israel
Leslee Michelsen, Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art
Bojan Miljković, Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences
Elka Mircheva, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
John Mitchell, University of East Anglia
Mihail Mitrea, Newcastle University
Marie-Elisabeth Mitsou, EHESS
Elissaveta Moussakova, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Emmanuel Moutafov, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Krassimira Moutafova, St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria
Mikael Muehlbauer, Columbia University
Stelyios Muksuris, Byzantine Catholic Seminary, Pittsburgh
Stephennie Mulder, The University of Texas at Austin
Margaret Mullett, Queen’s University Belfast
Elisabeta Negrău, „G. Oprescu” Art History Institute, Bucharest
Robert S. Nelson, Yale University
Elisabetta Neri, UMR Orient&Méditerranée-Paris
Christoph K. Neumann, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich
Emily Neumeier, Temple University
Leonora Neville, University of Wisconsin Madison
Galit Noga-Banai, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
William North, Carleton College
Paweł Nowakowski, University of Warsaw
Paolo Odorico, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales — Paris
Gokce Dervisoglu Okandan, Istanbul Bilgi University
Javier Ortolá Salas, Universidad de Cádiz
Victor Ostapchuk, University of Toronto
Robert G. Ousterhout, University of Pennsylvania
Agnès Ouzounian, INALCO (Paris)
Nilay Ozlu, University of Oxford / Altinbas University
Valentino Pace, Università di Udine
Georgios Pallis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Pagona Papadopoulou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Stratis Papaioannou, University of Crete
Amy Papalexandrou, University of Texas, Austin
Nassos Papalexandrou, University of Texas, Austin
Maria Parani, University of Cyprus
Andrea Paribeni, University of Urbino Carlo Bo
Laura E. Parodi, Università degli Studi di Genova
Elena Paskaleva, Leiden University
Silvia Pedone, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
Glenn Peers, Syracuse University
Bissera V. Pentcheva, Stanford University
Arseniy Petrov, Russian State University for the Humanities
Konrad Petrovszky, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Amanda Phillips, University of Virginia
Robert Pichler, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Jordan Pickett, University of Georgia
Aleksandr Preobrazhensky, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Chryssa Ranoutsaki, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich
Konstantinos Raptis, Ephorate of Antiquities, Thessaloniki
Andi Rembeci, University of Tirana
Andreas Rhoby, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Lutz Rickelt, Ikonen-Museum Recklinghausen
Meredith Riedel, Duke University
Alexandre Roberts, University of Southern California
Serena Romano, University of Lausanne
Maria Alessia Rossi, Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University
Susana Ruiz, Tecnológico de Monterrey (México)
James Ryan, New York University
Adam Sabra, University of California, Santa Barbara
Georgios Salakidis, Democritus University of Thrace
Catherine Saliou, Université Paris 8/École Pratique des Hautes Études, PSL
Jaime Vizcaíno Sánchez, Universidad de Murcia
Paula Caballero Sánchez, Universidad de Málaga
Joseph E. Sanzo, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice
Peter Sarris, University of Cambridge
Oliver Jens Schmitt, University of Vienna
Ellen C. Schwartz, Eastern Michigan University
Mira Xenia Schwerda, Harvard University
Tamara Sears, Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Lara Sels, KU Leuven
Athanasios Semoglou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
- Tunç Şen, Columbia University
Nancy P. Ševčenko, independent scholar, USA
Wendy Shaw, Freie Univeristät Berlin
Jonathan Shea, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
Petr Shuvalov, St. Petersburg State University
Irene Simantoni, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Nino Simonishvili, independent scholar, Georgia
James Skedros, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology
Dimitrios Skrekas, University of Oxford
Engelina Smirnova, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Sharon C. Smith, Arizona State University
Svetlana Smolčić Makuljević, Metropolitan University Belgrade
Kostis Smyrlis, National Hellenic Research Foundation
Pushkar Sohoni, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research
Foteini Spingou, University of Edinburgh
Dimitris Stamatopoulos, University of Macedonia
Tatjana Starodubcev, University of Novi Sad
Christos Stavrakos, University of Ioannina
Yannis Stouraitis, University of Edinburgh
Fabian Stroth, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Alice Isabella Sullivan, University of Michigan
Yasser Tabbaa, retired professor
Alice-Mary Talbot, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
Michael Talbot, University of Greenwich
Tuğba Tanyeri-Erdemir, University of Pittsburgh
Rabun Taylor, University of Texas, Austin
Allie Terry-Fritsch, Bowling Green State University
Natalia Teteriatnikov, independent scholar, USA
Baki Tezcan, University of California, Davis
Irakli Tezelashvili, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
Haris Theodorelis-Rigas, Koç University
Anne Tihon, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Galina Tirnanić, Oakland University
Jesse W. Torgerson, Wesleyan University
Hjalmar Torp, University of Oslo
Ida Toth, University of Oxford
Giovanni Travagliato, Università degli Studi di Palermo
Warren Treadgold, Saint Louis University
Ionut-Alexandru Tudorie, St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary
Vessela Valiavitcharska, University of Maryland
Günder Varinlioğlu, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University
Nükhet Varlık, Rutgers University
Manolis G. Varvounis, Democritus University of Thrace
Maria Vassilaki, University of Thessaly
Myrto Veikou, Uppsala University
Manuel Vial-Dumas, University of Girona, Spain
Marina Vicelja, University of Rijeka, Croatia
Tim Vivian, California State University, Bakersfield
Dragan Vojvodić, University of Belgrade
Oleg Voskoboynikov, National Research University, Moscow
Branka Vranešević, University of Belgrade
Milan Vukašinović, Uppsala University
Lauren Wainwright, University of Birmingham
Alicia Walker, Bryn Mawr College
Annabel Wharton, Duke University
Elizabeth Williams, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
Robert Wiśniewski, Uniwersytet Warszawski
Ethel Sara Wolper, University of New Hampshire
Warren T. Woodfin, Queens College, City University of New York
Diana Gilliland Wright, independent scholar, Washington, DC
Maria Xanthou, Harvard University
Ann Marie Yasin, University of Southern California
Ayşin Yoltar, Brooklyn Museum
Nikos Zagklas, University of Vienna
Anna Zakharova, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Zeido Zeido, Brandenburg University of Technology
