Sisällysluettelo:
- Milloin Hagia Sophia rakennettiin?
- Mitkä uskovat ovat palvonneet Hagia Sophiaa?
- Why is the Hagia Sophia important?
- How was the Hagia Sophia altered during the Ottoman Period?
- How did the Hagia Sophia get its name?
Hagia Sophia, turkkilainen ayasofya, latinalainen Sancta Sophia, jota kutsutaan myös Pyhän viisauden kirkoksi tai jumalallisen viisauden kirkoksi, katedraali, joka rakennettiin Konstantinopoliin (nykyinen Istanbul, Turkki) 6. vuosisadan ce (532–537) Bysantin johdolla keisari Justinian I. Yleisen yksimielisyyden mukaan se on tärkein bysanttilainen rakenne ja yksi maailman suurista muistomerkeistä.
Suosituimmat kysymykset
Milloin Hagia Sophia rakennettiin?
Suuri osa tänään ilmenneistä Hagia Sophian rakennuksista valmistui 6. vuosisadalla (ensisijaisesti 532–537), Bysantin keisari Justinianus I: n hallituskauden aikana. Alkuperäinen kirkon paikkakunnan miehittämiseksi (nimeltään Megale Ekklesia) tilasi keisari Constantine I. vuonna 325, kaadettiin mellakoiden aikana vuonna 404, rakennettiin myöhemmin uudelleen ja tuhottiin jälleen vuonna 532 ennen Justinianin käyttöönottoa nykyisessä rakennuksessa. Siitä lähtien mosaiikkeja on lisätty koko Bysantin ajan, rakenteellisia muutoksia tehtiin sekä Bysantin että ottomaanien ajan. Islamin arkkitehtuurin perinteille tärkeät piirteet rakennettiin ottomaanien omistaessaan rakennuksen.
Constantine I
Lue lisää Constantine I.
Mitkä uskovat ovat palvonneet Hagia Sophiaa?
The structure originally erected on the site of the Hagia Sophia was a Christian cathedral called the Megale Ekklesia, which was commissioned by the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine I. Prior to that, the site had been home to a pagan temple. It went through another religious conversion after the conquest of Constantinople by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1453, when it was designated a mosque. It would remain so for many centuries, until being secularized in 1934 by the Turkish Republic’s first president. It was converted into a museum a year later, a decision which remains controversial.
Mehmed II
Read more about Mehmed II.
Why is the Hagia Sophia important?
The Hagia Sophia is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site in Istanbul. For almost a millennium after its construction, it was the largest cathedral in all of Christendom. It served as a center of religious, political, and artistic life for the Byzantine world and has provided us with many useful scholarly insights into the period. It was also an important site of Muslim worship after Sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453 and designated the structure a mosque. It would remain a mosque until being converted into a museum in the 1930s.
Byzantine Empire
Read more about the Byzantine Empire.
How was the Hagia Sophia altered during the Ottoman Period?
Sultan Mehmed II designated the previously Christian church a mosque shortly after he conquered the city in 1453. Bringing the structure in line with the Islamic tradition called for a series of other modifications, not all of which were undertaken during the reign of Mehmed II. During Mehmed’s rule, a wooden minaret (no longer standing), a mihrab (niche positioned in the direction of Mecca), a minbar (pulpit), a madrasah (school), and a grand chandelier were added. Later modifications included the construction of more minarets, the whitewashing of Christian mosaics, and the addition of structural supports.
Ottoman Empire
Read more about the Ottoman Empire.
How did the Hagia Sophia get its name?
Hagia Sophia is not, in fact, the only name that the structure has gone by. Even now it’s known by several different monikers: Ayasofya in Turkish, Sancta Sophia in Latin, and Holy Wisdom or Divine Wisdom in English (alternate English translations of the Greek words Hagia Sophia). The name Hagia Sophia didn’t come about until around 430 CE. The first of the three Christian structures to be built on the site had another name altogether: Megale Ekklesia, or “Great Church.”
The Hagia Sophia was built in the remarkably short time of about six years, being completed in 537 ce. Unusual for the period in which it was built, the names of the building’s architects—Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus—are well known, as is their familiarity with mechanics and mathematics. The Hagia Sophia combines a longitudinal basilica and a centralized building in a wholly original manner, with a huge 32-metre (105-foot) main dome supported on pendentives and two semidomes, one on either side of the longitudinal axis. In plan the building is almost square. There are three aisles separated by columns with galleries above and great marble piers rising up to support the dome. The walls above the galleries and the base of the dome are pierced by windows, which in the glare of daylight obscure the supports and give the impression that the canopy floats on air.
The original church on the site of the Hagia Sophia is said to have been ordered to be built by Constantine I in 325 on the foundations of a pagan temple. His son, Constantius II, consecrated it in 360. It was damaged in 404 by a fire that erupted during a riot following the second banishment of St. John Chrysostom, then patriarch of Constantinople. It was rebuilt and enlarged by the Roman emperor Constans I. The restored building was rededicated in 415 by Theodosius II. The church was burned again in the Nika insurrection of January 532, a circumstance that gave Justinian I an opportunity to envision a splendid replacement.
The structure now standing is essentially the 6th-century edifice, although an earthquake caused a partial collapse of the dome in 558 (restored 562) and there were two further partial collapses, after which it was rebuilt to a smaller scale and the whole church reinforced from the outside. It was restored again in the mid-14th century. For more than a millennium it was the Cathedral of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. It was looted in 1204 by the Venetians and the Crusaders on the Fourth Crusade.
After the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II had it repurposed as a mosque, with the addition of a wooden minaret (on the exterior, a tower used for the summons to prayer), a great chandelier, a mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca), and a minbar (pulpit). Either he or his son Bayezid II erected the red minaret that stands on the southeast corner of the structure. The original wooden minaret did not survive. Bayezid II erected the narrow white minaret on the northeast side of the mosque. The two identical minarets on the western side were likely commissioned by Selim II or Murad III and built by renowned Ottoman architect Sinan in the 1500s.
In 1934 Turkish Pres. Kemal Atatürk secularized the building, and in 1935 it was made into a museum. Art historians consider the building’s beautiful mosaics to be the main source of knowledge about the state of mosaic art in the time shortly after the end of the Iconoclastic Controversy in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Hagia Sophia is a component of a UNESCO World Heritage site called the Historic Areas of Istanbul (designated 1985), which includes that city’s other major historic buildings and locations.
