One of the world’s most famous religious buildings, Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia was extraordinary when it was built in the sixth ...

Byzantine architecture has had a profound influence across the world, including in the Balkans, Middle East, and North ...

The current Hagia Sophia was built in the 6th century when Constantinople — as Istanbul was then called — was the heart of the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire that emerged as Ancient Rome ...

For almost 1,000 years, it was a Christian basilica, the largest and most spectacular temple not just in Constantinople, but in the entire Byzantine Empire. "Hagia Sophia is simply unique ...