The Geneva-based World Council of Churches, which consists of 350 churches as members and claims to represent more than 500 million Christians, urged Turkey to reverse the decision to turn the Hagia Sophia museum back into a mosque.
In a letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Council said the decision would create division amongst communities.
The letter read, the decision “will inevitably create uncertainties, suspicions and mistrust, undermining all our efforts to bring people of different faiths together at the table of dialogue and co-operation”.
“In the interests of promoting mutual understanding, respect, dialogue and co-operation, and avoiding cultivating old animosities and divisions, we urgently appeal to you to reconsider and reverse your decision,” the letter continued.
The letter is from the Council’s interim general secretary, Ioan Sauca, who says the Council feels “grief and dismay” over the decision.
In the letter, Ioan Sauca stated, “By deciding to convert the Hagia Sophia back to a mosque you have reversed that positive sign of Turkey’s openness and changed it to a sign of exclusion and division.”
After 86 years the first Muslim prayers would be held in the Unesco World Heritage site, Hagia Sophia, on 24 July.
Turkish President Erdogan during his address to the nation stated that the country had exercised its sovereign right by deciding to turn Hagia Sophia back into a mosque.
The President also said, “Like all our mosques, the doors of Hagia Sophia will be wide open to locals and foreigners, Muslims and non-Muslims”.
Hagia Sophia built 1,500 years ago as an Orthodox Christian cathedral was converted into a mosque after the Ottomans won their conquest of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) under the leadership of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed in 1453.
Hagia Sophia was then converted to a museum in 1934 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the first president of the modern, secular Turkey.
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