Haghia Sophia - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 35

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Haghia Sophia
“The church presents a most glorious spectacle, extraordinary to those
who behold it and altogether incredible to those who are told of it.
In height it rises to the very heavens and overtops the neighbouring
houses like a ship anchored among them, appearing above the
city which it adorns and forms a part of … It is distinguished by
indescribable beauty, excelling both in size and the harmonies
of its measures.” So wrote the chronicler Procopius more than 14
centuries ago, describing Haghia Sophia as it appeared during the
reign of its founder Justinian I. Haghia Sophia, the Church of the
Divine Wisdom, was dedicated by Justinian on 26 December 537.
For more than nine centuries thereafter Haghia Sophia served as the
cathedral of Constantinople and was the centre of the religious life
of the Byzantine Empire. For 470 years after the Turkish Conquest
it was one of the imperial mosques of Istanbul, known as Aya Sofya
Camii. It continued to serve as a mosque during the early years of
the Turkish Republic, until it was finally converted into a museum
in 1935. Now, emptied of the congregations which once worshipped
there, Christians and Muslims in turn, it may seem just a cold and
barren shell, devoid of life and spirit. But for those who are aware of
its long and illustrious history and are familiar with its architectural
principles, Haghia Sophia remains one of the truly great buildings in
the world. And it still adorns the skyline of the city as it did when
Procopius wrote of it 14 centuries ago.
The present edifice of Haghia Sophia is the third of that name to
stand upon this site. The first church of Haghia Sophia was dedicated
on 15 February in the year A.D. 360, during the reign of Constantius,
son and successor of Constantine the Great. This church was destroyed
by fire on 20 June 404, during a riot by mobs protesting the exile of
the Patriarch John Chrysostom by the Empress Eudoxia, wife of the
Emperor Arcadius. Reconstruction of the church did not begin until