Swiss scholars want famous church returned before Turkey joins EU

Published: 2005-09-09

OXFORD, England (CNS) -- Swiss scholars have petitioned the European Parliament to ask that Istanbul's sixth-century Church of Hagia Sophia, now a museum, be restored for Christian worship before Turkey joins the European Union. "This is not a public building that changed ownership with the conquest of a war -- Hagia Sophia is a place of God, Christendom's grandest place of worship for over 900 years, and arguably the most perfect and beautiful church erected by any Christian people," the group said in statement on a Hagia Sophia blog, or Web log. "Turkey has long severed its ties with darker aspects of its Ottoman past. It aspires to join the European Union. The time has come to restore Hagia Sophia's spirituality as a place of Christian worship," the Swiss scholars said. The statement noted that Turkey was trying to convince the European Union it deserved membership by 2015. "We need a million signatures to force the European Union to consider this proposal seriously and debate it immediately," said the group, chaired by Zurich University psychologist Angeliki Papagika.

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