Isn’t everything?
Surely SOME reporter has asked Lynch to reveal exactly how he thinks any US official will acquire the power to dictate who worships inside the Hagia Sophia.
(Maybe he’s under the impression that it’s in South Carolina…??)
Especially since it’s now a museum.
How many Greek Orthodox Church members are there in his state? He must be trying to appeal to some constituency.
Nah, he probably thinks the Southern Baptists would take over the Hagia Sophia once the Muslims were expelled.
And how many people in South Carolina even know what the Hagia Sophia is? It’s a pretty bizarre thing to post about.
Wasn’t she in Houseboat?
Absolutely. Reporters should be asking ‘WHAT on Earth put that bee in your bonnet??’
Maybe he saw a movie or something. But as far as I know “returning the Hagia Sophia to Christian hands” isn’t high on any MAGA lists at all.
I think it might have been the justification for one of the Crusades?
It was converted into a museum in 1935. But it was converted back into a mosque in 2020.
People who call themselves Christians and who hate Muslims.
I did not know that. Glad I got to see it while I could,
Note: Tourists can still visit the Hagia Sophia Mosque, but viewing the interior is supposed to be done outside of prayer times, and I think only from the upper gallery.
There appears to have been only one Crusade directed toward the recapture of Constantinople after it fell in 1453*, and I suppose reconverting Hagia Sophia could be considered one of its aims. In any case, it turned aside to relieve the Ottoman siege of Belgrade and stopped there.
* From what I’ve read, the fall of Constantinople is commonly regarded as the end of the Middle Ages, which began with the fall of Rome in 476. However you look at it, bookending the Middle Ages with the demise of the Western and Eastern empires has a nice symmetry.
Christian nationalists are behind the wheel of the Republican Party, and who knows what kinds of weird shit they have on their priority list.
My guess, and this is pure speculation, is that Lynch vaguely heard some report of the Hagia Sophia being converted back into a mosque in 2020. And there was some historical background in the report about how the Hagia Sophia used to be a church.
Lynch, being an idiot, missed the point that its conversion from being a church was back in 1453 and thinks that it was a church as recently as 2019.
The whackdoodle distracts reporters from asking about his stance on Epstein and the basis for his (Lynch’s) devotion to a sub-human who was into sexual assaulting young women.
Right, I was there a few months ago. Non-Muslims can view most of the interior from the upper gallery.
The fall of Constantinople, the discovery of the Americas and the invention of the printing press. It was a busy time.
I’d add Martin Luther to the mix. Although I can see the argument that he was more an early result of the start of the modern age rather than one of the causes.
There is a non-zero but probably less than 50% chance that he thinks it is in Jerusalem and is another name for the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock.