Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended Friday prayers at Hagia Sophia in İstanbul as Turkey marked the 573rd anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of the city with religious and cultural events across the country’s largest municipality.
Erdoğan prayed at the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, the former Byzantine cathedral that he reconverted from a museum into a mosque in 2020, a move that sparked criticism from Greece, the Orthodox Christian world and cultural heritage bodies.
Speaking to reporters after the prayer, Erdoğan said attendance at Hagia Sophia was “beautiful” and “magnificent.”
“Today is Friday, May 29, and we had the opportunity to pray at Hagia Sophia,” Erdoğan said. “Attendance at Hagia Sophia was also very beautiful, magnificent. Today there was a march from Fatih to Hagia Sophia,” he added, referring to Sultan Mehmed II as Fatih, or “the Conqueror,” a Turkish honorific marking the Ottoman capture of Constantinople under his leadership.
Mehmed II captured Constantinople on May 29, 1453, an event that ended the Byzantine Empire and turned the city into the Ottoman capital.
In Turkey’s official and conservative political language, the anniversary is often framed as the “conquest of İstanbul” and linked to Islamic and Ottoman heritage.
Hagia Sophia carries political and religious significance in Turkey and abroad.
Built in the sixth century under Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, it served for centuries as one of Christianity’s most important churches before it was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in 1453.
The secular Turkish republic turned it into a museum in 1934. Erdoğan, whose Justice and Development Party (AKP) receives support from conservative and religious voters, ordered it reopened for Muslim worship in 2020 after a Turkish court annulled the museum decree.
The decision was celebrated by Erdoğan’s supporters as the fulfillment of a longstanding Islamist and nationalist demand. Critics said it was a blow to Turkey’s secular legacy and to the building’s status as shared world heritage.
Hagia Sophia remains part of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Historic Areas of İstanbul.