ArmInfo.The Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, Aram A, touched on the decision to turn the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul into a mosque. Aram A wrote about this on his page on the social network Facebook.
The Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, in particular, noted: <Recently, we learned that the Turkish court gave the green light to the possibility of turning the Greek Cathedral of St. Sophia of Constantinople into a mosque.
This temple, built in 537, is considered the pinnacle of Byzantine architecture. After the Byzantine Empire was conquered by the Ottomans, the cathedral was turned into a mosque in 1453, and then in 1935, it was transformed into a museum.
In recent days, church leaders, as well as the international community, have urged Turkey not to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque and maintain its current status. Representatives of the Armenian-foreign press wanted to know our point of view on this issue>, Aram A. emphasized.
At the same time, he noticed that he would like to make a number of accents. <Firstly, at the current initiative of its president, Turkey actually continues to encroach on cultural and spiritual values, ignore the principles established by international law, and falsify history. Secondly, abandoning its internal and external interests, as well as its geopolitical goals, Turkey even ignores the instructions of its old and new friends.
Thirdly, by this decision, Turkey deliberately strikes at the foundations of Christian-Islamic mutual respect and trust at the local, regional and international levels.
Fifth, where were the leaders of the Western world, in the political or spiritual sense, when after the Armenian Genocide thousands of churches belonging to the Armenian people were turned into stables, cafes, mosques, <other public places>?
Yes, genocide continues with the same performer, in the face of world silence. The orthodox ideology of the Ottoman Empire pervades everywhere, from the Arab world to the West, in the face of world silence>, concluded the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia.