Pope Benedict XVI toured the 1,500-year-old Haghia Sophia on Thursday
November 30, 2006 as part of his pilgrimage of landmarks of Christianity's
ancient roots in Turkey.
The domed complex was for centuries a majestic center of Christianity
before Constantinople — now Istanbul — was conquered by Muslim armies in
1453.
The site was a mosque until 1935, when it was converted to a museum under
the secular reformers who founded modern Turkey from the ruins of the
Ottoman Empire.
Benedict also is expected to make a brief tour of the famous Blue Mosque
in the second papal visit to a Muslim place of worship after Pope John Paul
II's historic stop in a mosque in Syria in 2001.
