As of Friday, July 24, 2020, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul has been put back into active use as a mosque. As a Christian, I of course mourn this deeply. As a historian, however, the move does not surprise me. Many are the religious sites around the world today that were once worship sites for other deities, for other peoples, and for other mysteries, some barbaric. That historian in me says we should temper our outrage that the conquerors of a land would choose to make what use of that land that they will, for we have done the same ourselves. We should be wary of venting too much indignation over the status of a building lost ere Columbus sailed the ocean-blue and started a chain of losses for the peoples who once dwelt where we now live. In a way, Erdogan was right in his contempt for a foreign opinion on this matter; the Turks rule the roost in Turkey (would that Turkey respected others’ borders and rights as vehemently as he demands for his own country, however, as Cyprus, Syria, Armenia, Bulgaria, and Greece can all attest).

The world is littered with buildings and sites that once belonged to others. Sometimes those others stubbornly remain. More often they have faded away. In many cases, we should be very glad there are no such troublesome “old ritualists” about. I do not care to see the Aztec sun temples be anything but museums or out and out ruins – theirs was a cult of pure evil and industrial levels of human sacrifice. The Phoenicians were likewise a sacrificial cult whose old worship sites should never be given back. I do not think anyone is longing for a return of the Roman or Norse gods either. Christians largely knocked down or re-purposed the old temples and should be under no modern obligation to give them back, despite what the neo-pagans insist. To the victors go the spoils, especially after the lapse of a sufficient period of time. For many buildings, the time is long indeed since they served their original purposes.