{"id":12962,"date":"2016-07-21T12:41:08","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T09:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/?p=12962"},"modified":"2016-07-22T11:14:02","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T08:14:02","slug":"a-request-for-the-restoration-of-the-hagia-sophia-basilica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/a-request-for-the-restoration-of-the-hagia-sophia-basilica\/","title":{"rendered":"A request for the restoration of the Hagia Sophia Basilica"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><strong>17 July 2016<\/strong><\/em><\/h5>\n<address style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><em><strong>President of Turkey<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/address>\n<address style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><em><strong>Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/address>\n<address style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><em><strong>Government of Turkey<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/address>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/A-request-for-the-restoration-of-the-Hagia-Sophia-Basilica.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-12997\" title=\"A request for the restoration of the Hagia Sophia Basilica\" src=\"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/A-request-for-the-restoration-of-the-Hagia-Sophia-Basilica-300x188.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/A-request-for-the-restoration-of-the-Hagia-Sophia-Basilica-300x188.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/A-request-for-the-restoration-of-the-Hagia-Sophia-Basilica-1024x641.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/A-request-for-the-restoration-of-the-Hagia-Sophia-Basilica.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Dear Mr President,<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">dear Members of the Turkish Government,<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>we hereby address You with a request that the historic Hagia Sophia Basilica be restored to the Orthodox Christians for divine worship<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This Basilica served as the major Christian temple of the city of Constantinople until 1453. After the violent Islamization of the Christian territory, the Christian population fell to 0.1%. The Basilica was converted into a mosque. We request that this historic sacral building be restored to its original condition and returned. We also demand elimination of discrimination against Christians in Turkey as well as religious freedom for them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Over the last 40 years, the Christian states of Europe have helped build hundreds of mosques for Muslim migrants on their territory. Christians do not hinder the Muslim immigrants in fulfilling their religious duties. We demand the same receptiveness to Christians in Istanbul, which is considered a European city.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The largest mosque in Europe with capacity for 10.000 Muslims was inaugurated in the Orthodox city of Moscow last year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>In the event that on behalf of the Turkish state You refuse to return the historic Hagia Sophia temple to Christians, we propose, as partial satisfaction, that the mosque in Moscow be converted into an Orthodox temple and the mosque in Rome into a Catholic temple.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Thank You in advance for a positive response to our request.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">+ Elijah<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">+ Methodius OSBMr \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 + Timothy OSBMr<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Secretary Bishops<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/?page_id=9564\">https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/?page_id=9564<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Copies to:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Governments of EU Member States and Russia<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">UN Committee for Human Rights<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Council of Europe&#8217;s Commissioner for Human Rights<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Bishoprics of the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mass media<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><strong>Download: <a href=\"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/A-request-for-the-restoration-of-the-Hagia-Sophia-Basilica.doc\">A request for the restoration of the Hagia Sophia Basilica (17\/7\/2016)<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>17 July 2016 President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan Government of Turkey Dear Mr President, dear Members of the Turkish Government, we hereby address You with a request that the historic Hagia Sophia Basilica be restored to the Orthodox Christians for divine worship. This Basilica served as the major Christian temple of the city of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12962"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12962"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12966,"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12962\/revisions\/12966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vkpatriarhat.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}