In ancient Greek times, a town called Byzantium occupied the site. But in the 4th Century AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine, having converted the Christianity, founded the city of Constantinople to be the capital of the newly Christianized Roman Empire. Even after the Western Empire fell to the barbarians, Constantinople thrived as the capital of the Eastern or Byzantine Empire. It was the largest, most civilized city in Europe.

Byzantine Constantinople’s decline began when the knights of the 4th Crusade took and sacked it. Two and a half centuries later, the Ottoman Turks took the city and put an end to the remains of the Byzantine Empire. For four and a half centuries, Constantinople was the capital of the Ottoman Empire. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople was renamed Istanbul. It remains a major city in the Turkish Republic and an often visited place for people with the wish to see first hand on of history’s great cities.

Hagia Sofia

The Hagia Sofia is translated as “Church of the Divine Wisdom.” It was completed in the year 537 by the Emperor Justinian. Hagia Sofia was considered the greatest church in Christendom until the Turkish conquest on 1453 whereupon it was turned into a Muslim mosque. In 1935 it became a museum.

The dome is supported by 40 massive ribs constructed of special hollow bricks made in Rhodes from a unique light, porous clay, resting on huge pillars concealed in the interior walls. A visitor, entering the church through the Imperial Door and down the steps, will experience both a gradual sense of being drawn upwards and a sense of gloomy darkness being dispelled by the inner light of 30 million gold tesserae or mosaics. Forty windows around the parameter of the dome let in more light.

After the conversion to a mosque, Islamic additions were made inside and outside. The minarets, a mihrab, mimber, muezzin's lodge, sultan's lodge and library are all from this period.