Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan officially opened the former Byzantine church, The Church of St. Saviour in Chora, as a mosque in Istanbul on Monday. This conversion comes four years after the Turkish government designated it as a Muslim house of prayer, despite criticism from neighboring Greece.
The Church of St. Saviour in Chora, also known as Kariye in Turkish, was converted into a mosque in 2020, following a similar conversion of Istanbul's Hagia Sophia. Both structures are UNESCO World Heritage Sites and have historical significance dating back to the Byzantine era.
