Hagia Sophia's Christian icons to be covered with curtains during prayers
The 1,500-year-old Byzantine structure, which functioned as a museum for nearly 100 years, will reopen as a working mosque this week.
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The Hagia Sophia will cover some of its Christian mosaics with curtains, Turkey’s presidential spokesperson said, ahead of the contested landmark’s reopening as a working mosque this week.
“Our goal is to avoid harming the frescoes, icons and the historic architecture of the edifice,” Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said during a TV interview Sunday.