Turkish media supporters of President Erdogan emphasize the speed of construction of the church as a sign of the Turkish leader’s magnanimity towards local Christian communities, also to counter the controversy
Turkish President Recep Tayyip faces a growing backlash over plans to convert Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, the former Greek Orthodox cathedral that is now a museum, into a mosque. Once eastern Christianity’s greatest church, it was turned into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in the 15th century and then a museum in the 1930’s