Athens, 7 May 2024. Statement of the IAO Secretary General on the conversion of the Monastery of Christ at Chora into a Mosque

On the occasion of the reopening of the Byzantine Monastery of Christ at Chora in Istanbul (Constantinople) as a mosque, the Secretary General of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO), Dr. Maximos Charakopoulos, made the following statement:

«The decision of the Turkish leadership to operate the Monastery of Chora as a mosque, the Byzantine monument with the incomparably beautiful mosaics and the amazing frescos of the Palaiologos era, demonstrates its obsessive identification with neo-Ottoman ideologies.

This profane behavior, which favors the “right of conquest” in the use of monuments of universal culture, comes as a continuation of the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a Muslim mosque and constitutes a flagrant alteration of the historical truth. However, it is also a complete disregard of the international treaties for the protection of the monuments of the world cultural heritage.

The international community must show greater determination in the face of these actions and denounce Turkish arbitrariness, before the massive and daily attendance cause serious damage to the Monastery of Chora as has already happened in Hagia Sophia Church.

As the IAO, we are determined to continue the intensive campaign we started after the conversion of Hagia Sophia Church into a mosque, informing the international public opinion about the immediate danger that the Monastery of Chora is now facing. Finally, UNESCO should also rise to the challenge, and not simply observe “inadvertently and fatally” the destruction of universal monuments, which UNESCO itself recognized as world cultural heritage».