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Global Church Council Voices 'Grief and Dismay' at Turkey's Hagia Sophia
Decision

AFP

   GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - The World Council of Churches, which represents
   350 Christian churches, said Saturday it wrote to Turkey's president
   expressing "grief and dismay" over his decision to turn the Hagia
   Sophia museum back into a mosque.

   "Hagia Sophia has been a place of openness, encounter and inspiration
   for people from all nations and religions" since 1934 when it was
   turned from a mosque into a museum, the Geneva-based council's interim
   general secretary Ioan Sauca said in the letter.

   The 1,500-year-old UNESCO-listed site was initially an Orthodox
   Christian cathedral that became a mosque following the Ottoman conquest
   of Istanbul in 1453.

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