HERITAGE OF MAN

Evening Star, Issue 21905, 17 December 1934, Page 14

HERITAGE OF MAN

ST. SOPHIA MOSQUE THE CENTURIES 8F CHANGE NOW A MUSEUM. There are certain monuments of civilisation—the Parthenon at Athens, the Ta] Mahal at Agra—that belong to no era, to no faith,- to no nation, but are acclaimed as an imperishable heritage by mankind, writes P. W. Wilson, in the ‘ Chicago Tribune.’ Such, an edifice is the superb basilica of Hagia Sophia, or Holy Wisdom—known to us as St. Sophia—which rises midway between Europe and Asia above the banks of the Bosphorus. _ Appealing to the memories and emotions of Bast and West, this great symbol of reverence awaits a change in its ever dramatic destinies. It was built as a Christian church. It was subdued into a Mohammedan mosque. V A modernist Turkey has decided that henceforth it shall be the most magnificent of all museums. The glories of Byzantine mosaics, hidden for nearly five hundred years behind Islamic whitewash, are in process of skilful restoration. »

Vivid with mysticism and massacre, with rapture and riot, with dedication and desecration, the story of this church-mosque, starting in 532, covers almost exactly fourteen centuries, and it may be told in three chapters.' First, the building of a structure which, to this day, is regarded as a miracle of audacious design. Second, the unforgettable scene in the year 1453 when the great cathedral, like the city itself was violated by the invading Moslem and stripped of its ornaments. Third; the long and picturesome use of the cathedral as a mosque, second only in prestige to' Mecca itself. THE CURTAIN RISES. The curtain rises on an open-air hippodrome, shaped like a huge horseshoe and crowded with an excited throng, rapidly getting beyond control. In the centre sits a glittering but embarrassed Emperor Justinian, trying to make his voice heard, and by his side, no less glittering in her extravagant regalia, the masterful Theodora, it is only yesterday that she was a comedian and courtesan of the arena where she aroused roars of laughter by puffing out her cheeks in buffoonery. Now she reigns,, an Empress on the throne. There are dungeons under her luxurious palace where, in darkness, her enemies disappear. On the right of the Emperor, all are in blue; to the left, all are in green; they aro the Republicans and Democrats of Constantinople. At a festival, one faction—the greens—hid stones and daggers amid fruits, and so slew 3,000 of their rivals. Suddenly there is a cry of “ nika,” or ’“ victory.” The hippodrome is filled with uproar, and incendiaries rush forth to burn and plunder. In that outrageous disorder, the earlier St. Sophia—containing much wood within its fabric—perishes. The architects of the new ■ cathedral were Anthemius of Tralles 'apd Iso. dorus of Milesia, of whom Anthemius was a mathematician. He invented, it is said, a steam engine, also a searchlight, with which he used to astonish his friends.

; For five years 100 master builders and 10,000 workmen were employed upon the structure, and every night they received their wages in silver. The cost of the building has been appraised at the equivalent of at least £10,000,000. Roughly, St. Sophia was the Byzantine way of spending what we spend on a modern battleship. “ This church was given to God by Justinian the Emperor ” —so ran the inscription on the cornerstone; but in the night it was changed as follows: “ This church was given to God by Euphrasia the widow,” and repeatedly the correction was cut into the stone. There were inquiries as to who Euphrasia was and when she was found, an obscure woman, she denied point-blank that she had built the cathedral. She did admit, however, that she had given water to the oxen drawing the stone up the hill, and the inscription was allowed to stand.

A NOBLE DOME. There are many famous domes in the work Michelangelo’s ' above St. Peter’s, Brunelleschi’s over the Duomo at Florence, and Wren’s at St. Paul’s. Mosques also have their domes; that of St. Sophia is notable chiefly for the reason that the dome’s circumference is inscribed in a large square and rests not on a circular wall, like that of the Pantheon at Home, but upon four curvilined triangles at the corners. Thus is achieved a dome on a square base. So radiant with ■ light is this . dome with its forty-eight windows, so” independent of support does it appear, that it seemed to those who saw it centuries ago to be suspended from Heaven itself by a golden chain. The devout whispered that holy relics had been built into the spreading vault. The Moslems are sure that they include a hair of the Prophet. In a region of earthquakes the dome —lo7ft broad -and 48ft high—has been none to stable. It is constructed ; in part of Rhodian bricks, much lighter than ordinary bricks; and. the thickness diminishes as the dome rises. At the summit it is a mere eggshell. Even so, the houses of Constantinople were robbed of their plumbing to provide lead to be poured into the masonry, and at a later date vast buttresses were built as additional supports against the lateral thrust of the superstructure. FINAL TRIUMPH. It was a symbol of final triumph over paganism that the basilica—intended to outshine the temple of Solomon—was acclaimed with such enthusiasm. Shrines of the gods, once held in reverence, were despoiled of their treasures, and to this day St. Sophia displays eight serpentine columns that once adorned the temple of Diana at Ephesus. Eight other columns of porphyry were .brought from the Temple of the Sun at Palmyra, where the Emperor Aurelian had overwhelmed Zenobia, the Queen who graced his triumph as a captive. Other columns are traced, more or less confidently, to the sanctuary of Apollo at Dephi and to the Temple of Pallas at Athens. Here were emperors crowned and wedded. Here were their children baptised. And in ,the narthex, or western corridor, where to-day mosaics are uncovered, penitents awaited pardon and cathechumens received instruction. To maintain this magnificence 10,000 shops paid rental. The church was not sufficient in itself. St. Sophia was surrounded by what can best be /described—allowing for differences—as a kind of Vatican City, _ an immense agglomeration of libraries and colleges where were stored and studied those manuscripts of which merely the remnants are today the priceless materials of scholarship. The distribution of those manuscripts throughout Europe was the sowing of the seed of which the Renaissance was the harvest. FIVE CENTURIES. In his sardonic way Gibbon describes the glories of St. Sophia as a Byzantine cathedral. He adds that these glories were “ insignificant ” when •‘.compared with the formation of the vilest insect that crawls upon the surface of this temple,” and that was the Moslem view. Obeying the Mosaic veto on graven images and pictures of living creatures* the Sultan cleared the cathedral of idols—as he regarded them—and whitewashed, the gleaming mosaics on walls and vaulted roof. There is an exquisite pulpit where every Friday the niullah recited the Koran, and. since the mosque is spoil of war, the holy man used, always to pray with a drawn sword in his hand. Four minarets have been raised by the Sultans. They _ stand as sentinels around the captive cathedral, arid at the appointed hour there has been heard from one of them the call to prayer. The Moslem worship continued for nearly five centuries, and Sultan after Sultan of the House of Othmann entered the gallery reserved for majesty and prayed toward Mecca, No mob of Greens and Blues now breaks into St. Sophia. No Sultan strides over the traditions of a defeated Christendom. It is a new at-

mosphere that pervades the ancient splendours. They who have watched the worshippers at the great mosque in recent years report that as a rule they belong to the older generation. The young Turkdapper in his Western clothes, and debonair—does not see any, necessity for a public rinsing of his mouth and washing of his feet before he worships, Ha has other means of fulfilling the laws of cleanliness. In contempt Kemal has thrown the Koran bn to .the floor of his room and erected a statue to himself and forbidden the fez, and torn the veil from the face of woman— Yildiz Kiosk—the place of the Sultana —is a museum. Why not the Sultan’s mosque ? Philistines hint that St. Sophia, with its minarets,. is no better than a birthday cake surrounded with candles. Yet even the contour of the cathedra], emerging above, the Golden Horn, is now an evidence that the triumph of force over faith, however absolute, does not endure. ' ,