Turkey on Monday reopened a mosque converted from an ancient Orthodox church in Istanbul for Muslim worship, four years after the president ordered its transformation.
The Kariye Mosque was formerly a Byzantine church, then a mosque and then a museum.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in 2020, ordered the building to be reconverted into a Muslim place of worship.
The changes were seen as part of Erdogan’s efforts to galvanise his more conservative and nationalist supporters.
But they have also added to tensions with prelates in both the Orthodox and Catholic churches.
Images also revealed that two mosaics carved into the walls of the ancient church on the right and left sides of the prayer room were covered with curtains.
Most of the mosaics and frescos however remained visible to visitors.
“But ultimately we must recognise that it’s well done, that the frescos are accessible to everybody,” the 31-year-old researcher said.
Greece’s foreign affairs ministry on Monday night blasted a “provocation”, claiming that the move “alters the character” of the former church and “harms this UNESCO world heritage site that belongs to humanity”.
Neighbouring Greece had already reacted angrily to the decision in 2020 to convert the building.
The Holy Saviour in Chora was a Byzantine church decorated with 14th-century frescoes of the Last Judgement that are still treasured by Christians.
It became the Kariye Museum after World War II, when Turkey sought to create a more secular republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
A group of art historians from the United States helped restore the original church’s mosaics and they were put on public display in 1958.
Hagia Sophia — once the seat of Eastern Christianity — was also converted into a mosque by the Ottomans.
Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey after World War I, turned the UNESCO World Heritage site into a museum in a bid to promote religious neutrality.
Nearly 100 years later, Erdogan, whose ruling AKP party has Islamist roots, turned it back into a Muslim place of worship.
“It’s better preserved, less touristic and more intimate