Kariye Mosque & Museum
The Kariye Mosque (Turkish: Kariye Camii), or the Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora , is a medieval Greek Orthodox church used as a mosque today in the Edirnekapı neighborhood of Istanbul, Turkey. The neighborhood is situated in the western part of the municipality (belediye) of the Fatih district. The Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora was built in the style of Byzantine architecture. In the 16th century, during the Ottoman era, the Christian church was converted into a mosque; it became a museum in 1945, and was turned back into a mosque in 2020 by President Erdogan, but the mosque reversion has been halted as of January 2021 due to lack of Islamic cultural significance and clerical interest, compared to the Hagia Sophia.[4] The interior of the building is covered with some of the oldest and finest surviving Byzantine Christian mosaics and frescoes; they were uncovered and restored after the building was secularized and turned into a museum.
