Pope Francis shakes hands with Mufti of Istanbul, Rahmi Yaran as he leaves the Sultan Ahmet mosque, popularly known as the Blue Mosque, on Nov. 29 in Istanbul.Gokhan Tan/Getty Images ...

Hagia Sophia is nearly 1,500 years old and served as one of the most exalted seats of Christian and then Muslim worship in the world. The association that brought the court case, the latest in a ...

WATCH ABOVE: The first prayers in Turkey's Hagia Sophia will be held on July 24, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday after declaring the ancient monument was once again a mosque following a ...

Both are listed as U.N. World Heritage Sites. A visitor takes photographs during her visit to a former Byzantine church which formally opened as a mosque, in Istanbul, Turkey, Monday, May 6, 2024.

A view of Hagia Sophia or Ayasofya, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which was a Byzantine cathedral before being converted into a mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, on June 30, 2020. MURAD SEZER/Reuters ...

Turkey formally converted The Church of St. Saviour in Chora, known as Kariye in Turkish, into a mosque in 2020, soon after it similarly turned Istanbul’s landmark Haghia Sophia into a Muslim ...