Hagia Sophia

It was once a church, then a mosque, then a museum, and today a mosque and a museum. Hagia Sophia is located in a city overlooking the Bosporous Strait once called Byzantium, Turkey. The town was later was renamed Constantinople after its founder and ruler, and today is known as Istanbul.  

This building was originally commissioned by the son of Constantine and built in the 360 AD after which it underwent various revisions until 537 AD when the structure took on it's current dimensions - a 100 foot wide dome rising 180 feet above the floor, supported by 104 columns from the temple of Artemis in Emphasis, and from Egypt.  Impressive does not approach an  adequate description of the experience of being there.

I was allowed to sketch this tranquil and moving scene during afternoon Islam prayers. The scope of the height and depth is impossible to capture on a piece of paper.  The sense of something larger, sacred and enduring, for Christians and Moslems, is palpable.

God is great, indeed.