HAGIA SOPHIA;
After the proclamation of Christianity as the official state
religion, by Emperor Constantine I., known as the Great,
(324-337 A.D.), construction of big churches were undertaken
everywhere in Byzantium. Constantine, the Great was claimed,
not justly perhaps, to be the founder of many churches,
because of his manifestation of such tolerance.
Socrates (380-440) , the chronicler of the church history of
the period, states that the first building of Hagia Sophia
(or sometimes referred to as Saint Sophia) was erected by
Constantine the Great.
Hagia Sophia, which is one of the outstanding monuments in
the history of art in our planet, had been called a "Megalo
Ecclesia" (meaning a colossal church ) at its first
construction. This great monument has, however, been called
as Sophia since the Fifth Century. This architectural marvel
was not, however, dedicated to a Saint as one may think, but
has been dedicated to the Holy Wisdom (Theia Sophia), which
is the second element of the Christian Trinity .
The populace of Byzantium continued for a long time to call
this church as "Megalo Ecclesia " .After the conquest of
Byzantium in 1453, the name Hagia Sophia has survived to
modern times.
The first church was inaugurated with pomp and circumstance
on February 15, 360 A.D. The building was like its
contemporary religious edifices, was built with a wooden
roof on an oblong basilica. Saint John Chrysostom, the
Patriarch of Constantinople (Istanbul) , was for a long time
in constant struggle with the Empress Eudoxia, wife of
Emperor Arcadius (395-408) .As a result of a dispute over a
silver- plated statue of the empress to be erected outside
of, but in the close vicinity of the church, the Patriarch
was sent to exile on June 20, 404, and during the riots that
immediately followed his exile, the church was partly burned
down. Its restoration was completed in the reign of Emperor
Theodosius II ( 408-450) .After a long period of repairs,
the church was inaugurated again on October 10, 415.
This newly restored Hagia Sophia was to stand intact for
slightly more than a century. At the time of Emperor
Justinian, the Great (527-565), just before the realization
of the Sixth Century, a strong feud started in Byzantium
between the Blues and the Greens.
These were, at first, sports clubs so- named as they were
groups participating at the horse races in the Hippodrome,
and bearing those colours respectively. But later on, these
groups assumed political identities, and began to turn into
instruments reflecting the different tendencies of the
people. As time went by, the Blues assumed the
representation of Orthodoxism and the big land owners, while
the Greens represented the Monophysi- tes, tradesmen and
artisans. The ranks in the political, social and religious
strata of the society thus became clearly distinct in the
conflict between the Blues and the Greens. In 532 A.D., the
Blues and the i iGreens joined forces in rebelling against
emperor Justinian, the Great. The riots breaking out first
in the Hippodrome, and known in history as "the Nika riots"
(Nika meaning "to conquer" ) , soon spread out to the entire
city .The fire breaking out during the ensuing tumult,
caused Hagia Sophia to burn down. The emperor, who had
accepted defeat and was about to flee, saved his crown
thanks to his wife, the empress Theodora, who sent out
Generals Narces and Balisarius to suppress the rebellion.
The Palace Guards, attacking the rebels, restored the law
and order by putting ten thousands of rebels to the sword.
Despite the suppression of the rebellion on January 13, 532,
unfortunately Hagia Sophia was being consumed in flames for
the second time. During the excavations carried out by A.M.
Schneider in 1935 in the western courtyard of Hagia Sophia,
a lot of big marble slabs were unearthed. The slabs were
ornamented with lambs in relief, representing the twelve
apostles. It was thus discovered that these slabs were
fragments of an entrance of monumental dimensions.
These are apparently the remains of the entrance front of the second Hagia
Sophia, built by Emperor Theodosius 11, in the form of a
basilica. This second Hagia Sophia, the remains of which we
see today, was burned down during the Nika riots. We find
out from Procopius, the Byzantine historian of the period,
that as soon as the rioting mob were put to the sword,
Emperor Justinian took steps to build an edifice that would
be entirely different from its earlier models, but would be
a more majestic and gigantic temple ever built up to that
time.
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