A model of the Wall of Constantinople has been erected outside Hagia Sophia as part of events for the Fall of Constantinople.
According to SKAI, a ceremony on the anniversary will be held at nine o’clock in the evening, which will be broadcast on Turkish state television.
Also, according to newer information, the prayer will take place in the courtyard, but it is not ruled out that an imam may call for prayer from inside.
The pilgrimage and reading of the prayer in Hagia Sophia was announced yesterday by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “In the afternoon, as part of the celebration of the Fall, organized by the Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Culture, the Fall prayer will be read in Hagia Sophia and prayers will be recited,” the Turkish president noted.
With this announcement, he essentially “annuled” the head of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs, Ali Erbas, who had earlier said that today’s prayer will not take place in Sultanahmet Square between Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Mosque), but at the Fatih Mosque in Constantinople.
Ali Erbas said that “we may hold Friday prayers in the square and the courtyard of the Sultanahmet Mosque in the coming weeks or later.”
It is noted that Ali Erbas had recently stated that he had the inspiration to hold the first prayer after the reopening of the mosques in the square between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque today, May 29, on the day of the anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople.
It is also recalled that the church of Hagia Sophia functions as a museum and in recent years there have been constant statements about its conversion into a mosque.
Source: kathimerini.gr
