Constantinople

A replica wall of the famous Byzantine-era walls of Contantinople was erected outside Hagia Sophia on Thursday as Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that a prayer to commemorate the 567th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople would be...

The recent collapse of part of the historic Byzantine wall in the Topkapi neighborhood of Constantinople has raised concerns over the maintenance of a range of iconic ancient Greek, Byzantine and Roman sites in Turkey. Part of the Theodosian Walls,...

The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople issued a statement on Wednesday announcing the Church's new decision in regard to the covid-19 global coronavirus pandemic. According to this statement, all religious ceremonies, events and rituals will be suspended in all of the Patriarchate's...

2020 is a leap year, meaning that February has 29 instead of 28 days, and millions of people this year are celebrating their birthday accurately, for the first time since ...2016! A person born on February 29 may be called a...

Turkey's Council of State, the country's highest administrative court, has recently approved changing the historic Chora Greek Orthodox Church located in Istanbul, currently a museum, into a mosque. Commentators say that sets the legal precedent for transforming Hagia Sophia, the...

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I strongly criticized the Russian Patriarchate of Moscow on Tuesday regarding the issue of the independence of the Ukrainian Church. The already-cool relations between the two Christian Orthodox Patriarchates were completely severed a few...

The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared that still ''there are people who want to see Istanbul as Constantinople,'' on Saturday. Erdogan was participating in the series of public spectacles and events which Turkey organizes every year on the occasion of the...

The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated on Friday his intentions to change Hagia Sophia's status from Museum to Mosque. Erdogan has made Hagia Sophia one of the main topics of the political discourse in Turkey ahead of Sunday's local...

Greek media, citing sources from UNESCO on Wednesday morning, reported that the Paris-based organization has tried to halt Erdogan’s plans to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Hagia Sophia, a Byzantine Christian Cathedral until Constantinople’s fall in 1453, is now...

Turkish President Recep Tayipp Erdogan responded angrily on Friday to the so-called manifesto of the New Zealand killer, which contained hateful anti-Islamic language. The pages-long rant by white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, 28, reveals an obsession with historical figures who fought...