The Context of the Hagia Sophia Controversy

Erdogan's conversion of the Hagia Sophia museum back into a mosque has generated a fair bit of news coverage in the West, coupled with not a little consternation and some confusion.

For example I heard BreakPoint's John Stonestreet take issue with Erdogan's proclamation by insisting that it wasn't being turned back into a mosque – as in being restored to its original state – rather its original state was that it was a church.

Of course he's technically speaking, correct. Hagia Sophia, the vast edifice located in today's Istanbul was constructed by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in the sixth century. Captured by the Turks in 1453 it was converted from a 'church' into a mosque. In the 570 or so years since then it has not once served as a church. And then in 1935 under the secularising Ataturk it was turned into a museum – albeit a museum with a decidedly Islamic and mosque-like flair. It's not as if visiting Greeks felt at home. If anything it made them tear and their hair and rend their clothes.

And yet in 2020, Erdogan, who has been steadily setting aside the secular-nationalist ideology of Kemalism, has converted it back into being a mosque.

Stonestreet expresses his usual confusion regarding all things Christian in arguing that the Greek Orthodox building was some kind of viable church prior to 1453. I say viable because in cultural terms it was certainly a church. But no person who professes to follow the New Testament would for a second confuse that sacralist Babel-like idol-house as something to do with the Biblical Church. It was in fact a testimony to just how far Orthodoxy (or really Eastern Catholicism at that point) had fallen away from New Testament and Early Church norms. The changes that took place in the 4^th and 5^th centuries were sweeping and stunning.

Additionally even the über-ecumenical approach of Stonestreet is inconsistent. Ethnic Christian groups are Christian except when they aren't – which usually means they are somehow allied with forces opposed to Western or US policy.* 

As one who has a tangential historical interest and indeed as one who loves that part of the world and its history – I'm very interested in the topic. And yet in terms of Christianity, the whoremonger murderer, the emperor Justinian and his sundry building projects have nothing to do with the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. He was an evil lord, a butcher reigning over an increasingly evil system – a compromised entity that had once been the Church.

The BreakPoint commentary offered nothing in terms of the context of Erdogan's actions and Stonestreet's placement of the building and its history in terms of the Church and its history are completely erroneous. As usual, Stonestreet in the end sows confusion and does nothing to help promote truth or discernment. His commentaries are a veritable fount of misinformation, spin, error and sometimes heresy. It's no wonder he's so popular. We were told such ear-ticklers would be. And of course as awful as his understanding of Christianity is – there's even worse out there.

In addition to white-washing if not ignoring the history, Stonestreet left out the contemporary context which is in some respects the most important aspect of the story to consider. Erdogan didn't just do this out of the blue. There's a long storied context to his actions.

Greece and Turkey are ancient enemies and this conflict now extends back a thousand years into the past. The Turks clashed with the Byzantines and the latter lost their empire and much that they cherished. The contemporary phase of the conflict is rooted in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the conclusion of WWI. The British and French proceeded to divvy up the empire and the encouraged Greeks launched an assault to re-capture Asia Minor – the heartland they had lost five hundred years earlier. It was a catastrophe. Mustapha Kemal or 'Ataturk' defeated the invaders and drove off the French and British. He carved out the modern state of Turkey. The defeated Greeks were driven into the Aegean and as a consequence of the Megali Idea – the attempt to re-conquer the Greek regions of Asia Minor – Ataturk viewed the considerable Greek populations in Turkey as a potential fifth column and had most of them expelled. In a foreshadowing of Indian Partition there was a massive population exchange as Greeks moved to Europe and Turks and Muslim converts were relocated from Europe to Turkey. Over 1 million Greeks were relocated to the political entity today known as 'Greece' – the nation state created in the 19^th century. These Greeks of Asia Minor and Pontic Greeks from the Black Sea hadn't lived in 'Greece Proper' for centuries, even millennia – if ever. And yet now as they crowded into cities like Athens and Salonika, they were filled with bitterness. Hundreds of thousands had died during WWI and the Greco-Turkish War. More had died during the expulsion and while many had been grieved by the thought of Constantinople in Turkish hands, now they were completely cut-off, unable to even visit the esteemed city. The Bosphorus, old Ionia and Pontus were now but memories.

The Orthodox Patriarch maintained his presence in the Phanar district of Constantinople (now Istanbul) and yet his remaining already dwindled prestige was shattered, his power broken. And while the Islamic caliphate was gone, the secular nationalist state erected by Ataturk proved in some respects more difficult to function in and many of the Orthodox that remained began to emigrate.

There would be further tensions over Cyprus in the 1970's and Turkish attempts to join the European Union in the 1990's and 2000's. The Turkish political transformation under Erdogan, the attempted coup against him and the various Greek economic, political and immigration crises have set both nations on edge. The fact that Erdogan, acting independently of both the EU and NATO has pursued a Mediterranean policy that threatens to harm Greek shipping interests and resource access has brought things to a near flashpoint.  He has also hinted at a modification of the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, suggesting that Turkey has an interest in some of the Greek islands in the Aegean that are in some cases just off the Turkish coast.

Finally, the Maritime Agreement signed by Erdogan and the Tripoli government in Libya in November 2019 has brought things to the brink of war. Turkey and elements in Tripoli are attempting to carve up the Eastern Mediterranean and this has pushed the Greeks to support Khalifa Haftar and the Libyan Tobruk faction – the implication is that the fall of the Tripoli government would bring an effective end to the agreement.

It is this context that explains Erdogan's move in the summer of 2020 regarding the Hagia Sophia. It is but a part in a larger ongoing struggle.

But there's another layer to the Erdogan story. In addition to being spurned by the EU, he has been conspired against by Washington which maintains NATO bases and nuclear weapons on his soil. At this point the weapons may have been removed – if so their placement is an officially unclear yet open secret. But Erdogan (with good reason) believes the US was deeply involved in the 2016 coup attempt against him. The US long controlled the Turkish military which was accused of plotting against Erdogan in the early 2000's – the charge would certainly be in keeping with established precedent. The US harbours Turkey's chief dissident – the notorious cleric Fethullah Gülen who resides in Eastern Pennsylvania. Washington has also maneuvered to help the Phanar regarding the re-opening of Halki Seminary located on an island in the Sea of Marmara. While an ongoing effort, it has received a boost in recent years and one wonders if the rapidly declining relationship between the US and Turkey has led Washington to reach out to the Constantinople Patriarch – a move that would be viewed favourably in Greece itself – which just recently made a political turn to the Right and toward Washington.

For his part Bartholomew I surprised many by fomenting an Orthodox schism with his granting of Ukrainian Autocephaly in 2019. Was this merely out of concern for the Ukrainian Orthodox population? Was it out of concern regarding the growing power of the Moscow Patriarchate? What did the US offer if anything? The US for its part worked during the Cold War to exercise influence over its own Orthodox populations. These projects were spearheaded by US intelligence. Since the end of the Cold War some of these groups have trickled back into the mainstream Orthodox fold. While at this point there's no real proof, one has to wonder if a deal wasn't cut – the Phanar receiving some kind of incentive or promise from Washington. We know the Poroshenko regime born of the 2014 Euromaidan coup, was a creation of the Americans and it was this regime that pushed aggressively for autocephaly. Why would the Patriarch damage his own standing within the Orthodox world? There must be a yet undisclosed reason.

While Turkey had initially been involved in the Crimea situation (through the Crimean Tatars), Erdogan has avoided involvement in the Donbass. But you can be sure Erdogan is watching and has grown increasingly irritated by US machinations within his own country. This has also played a part in his government's sponsorship or perhaps permissiveness with regard to Islamist groups attacking Orthodox Christians and those connected with the West, not to mention his Syria policy which in some ways represented a triangulation – resisting both the Assad government and US policy and its regional allies such as the Kurds.

Erdogan's government also seized the American missionary Andrew Brunson who proved in the end to be exactly what Ankara feared – not only one who sought Muslim converts but one who was willing to act on behalf of Washington.

All of this must be understood to grasp why Erdogan would make his move in 2020. I do not defend him. He's a wicked man but at the same time there is a logic and progression to his moves. Again, as with Putin he's a villain that has been in many ways created by the West. It didn't have to turn out this way but both Erdogan and Putin were courted and then betrayed by the Washington (and the EU) and as a result both have been transformed into the very villains they were imagined to be.

Western coverage and Stonestreet's 'commentary' are little more than 'hit pieces' meant to agitate the public and paint Erdogan in a bad light. There's plenty to criticise but a concise news article or a canned five minute radio commentary does nothing to help the audience understand just what is going on – and for Christians how we should understand it and respond. It's a fascinating but very complicated part of the world.

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*Stonestreet is hardly alone. American Evangelicals are quick to claim every form of Christianity in Africa and Asia, but they have often resisted certain groups like Catholics in Latin America – where they have often opposed Evangelicals. Likewise the Russian Orthodox are often discounted as are Palestinian Christians – in both cases they are too closely identified with political forces that resist US (or Israeli) policy. Add in the Dispensational theological element and the Palestinians are doubly condemned it would seem.