The church of Agia Sophia

Agia Sophia, which now serves as a museum, lies on the north-eastern side of Sultan Αhmet Square, opposite the Blue Mosque. The present day church is the third built on the same site: the original Agia Sophia, founded by Constantine the Great, was destroyed by fire in 404, when riots broke out in Constantinople over the dethronement of Patriarch John Chrysostom; the church renovated by Emperor Theodosius II suffered irreparable damage in 532, also by fire during the Nika Revolt. Agia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) and Agia Irene (Holy Peace) were dedicated to attributes of God, and together served as the churches of the Patriarchate. However, only Agia Sophia went down in history as the "Great Church".

Construction work began immediately after Emperor Justinian had suppressed the Nika revolt, and was assigned to engineers Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus. The building was completed in five years and eleven months, and was inaugurated in December 537. Agia Sophia is considered one of the most splendid buildings of its time – even if this church was the only surviving Byzantine building, it would still be worth our while to study and admire Byzantine culture. In his work On Buildings, the historian Procopius describes the splendour and magnificence of the church, which stunned the faithful on account of its size and beauty, and the variety and richness of its decoration. The book also gives an account of the construction process and recounts the technical problems faced by the architects in erecting such a large building. As he writes, these were corrected thanks to the genius of Justinian, who gave the architects wise advice. Agia Sophia had to be larger, more majestic and more sumptuously decorated than the church of Agios Polyeuctus founded a few years earlier by the affluent Anicia Juliana, who hoped to put her son Olybrius on the throne.

Agia Sophia is a combination of a domed basilica and a centrally planned building. Its construction was revolutionary and innovative for its time: the ground plan of the church forms a rectangle 77 by 71 metres, ending in and apse to the east and in a narthex and an exonarthex to the west. Inside, four large pillars stand in the corners of the nave, forming a 31 metre sided square. The pillars are connected to four arches, of which the north and south are very shallow, while the east and west end in four large conches to the east and west of the central square. The dome rests on forty ribs flanking forty windows in the lower section, pouring light into the central nave. The side aisles have galleries, of which the south was used by the emperor, his family, his senior officials and palace courtiers to attend the liturgy. Access to the nave is gained via five doors in the narthex, the middle one being known as the Royal Door.

The church is famous not only for its architecture, but also for the mystical atmosphere created by light as it bounces off the precious materials glittering in the interior. The windows around the dome diffuse light and lend an impression of weightlessness and evanescence, creating the illusion that the vaults are floating and the dome is hanging from the sky. On the inside, the opulence and luxury of the materials used is awe-inspiring.

According to Procopius, columns, marble, works of art and precious materials were brought from all the provinces of the empire to realize Justinian’s vision. The walls and pillars of the nave are dressed with green and dark blue-grey marble revetments, arranged so that the veins form symmetrical designs, while the columns in the niches on either side of the sanctuary apse and the entrance are of expensive, purple granite (porphyry). The architectural sculptures in the church - capitals, cornices and door frames - have delicate relief decoration, often attributed to the use of a small drill, so as to create embossed designs resembling lace around the main architectural members.

All that remains of the exquisite mosaics in the church are a few fragments. Parts of the Justinian decoration are preserved in the intrados of the arcades in the central nave, the side aisle and the gallery vaults, and around the edge of the apse. The decoration is non-figurative (it does not include human figures), consisting of floral motifs and geometric shapes arranged on a gold background.

The surviving representations were created after the end of Iconoclasm in 843, and were preserved because they were plastered over for as long as the church functioned as a mosque.

The semi-dome in the sanctuary apse has a depiction of an enthroned Virgin and Child flanked by archangels; six-winged seraphim have survived on the dome pedentives. Prelates and prophets appear high up on the nave walls, between the windows. On the tympanum above the door in the corridor leading from the palace to the narthex, an enthroned Virgin and Child are shown flanked by Constantine the Great offering an effigy of Constantinople, and Justinian offering an effigy of Agia Sophia, so as to remind later emperors who founded the city ​​and the church. The semicircular tympanum above the central (Royal) door in the narthex bears a depiction of an emperor doing penance before the enthroned Christ, flanked by the Virgin Mary and an archangel in medallions. The emperor is probably Leo VI; he is shown in this position as a sign of penitence for his fourth marriage, which was illegal under canon law.

In the north gallery there is a mosaic depiction of Leo’s VI brother, Alexander, clothed in imperial robes, which was probably painted during his short reign in 912-913. The east wall of the south gallery has two mosaic votive representations of Emperors Constantine Monomachus and Zoë, dating to around the year of Constantine’s ascension in 1044, and of John Comnenus and Irene, from around 1118. The south gallery also has an enormous representation of the Supplication, where Christ is flanked by the figures of the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist interceding for the salvation of men. This may have been sponsored by Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus himself, following the recovery of Constantinople in 1261.

The monument has undergone several repairs and alterations down the centuries. The original dome collapsed in an earthquake in 558 and was rebuilt 6 metres higher by Isidore the Younger. The enormous weight was probably not sufficiently supported, causing the base of the dome to deform, the pillars and buttresses to bend backwards and the east and west arch to widen. In 989 the Armenian architect Trdat was called to Constantinople to carry out restoration work on the west arch and parts of the dome, which had collapsed after an earthquake. The east part of the dome collapsed once again in 1346. In the 16th century additional repairs were carried out, and the four minarets still seen today were added to the corners of the building. Swiss architects Gaspar and Giuseppe Fossati oversaw another major repair project between 1847 and 1849.

The church was the seat of the Patriarchate throughout the Byzantine period. Following the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders in 1204 it became a Catholic archbishop’s cathedral, and after 1453 was converted into a mosque. It remained a place of worship from then until 1935, when it was declared a museum.

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