By Matters India Reporter
Yangon, July 25, 2020: An Asian cardinal, who has consistently defended freedom of religions, has decried Turkish President’s decision to convert a revered icon of Christianity into a mosque.
“It merely reopens wounds and exacerbates divides at a time when we should be healing humanity,” Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, stated July 24, the day Istanbul’s historic Hagia Sophia was reopened for Friday prayers.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had decreed to turn the museum back into a mosque after 86 years.
The move sparked dismay in Greece, the United States and among Church leaders who urged Erdogan to maintain Hagia Sophia as a museum in recognition of Istanbul’s multi-faith heritage and the structure’s status as a symbol of Christian and Muslim unity.
Built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 537, Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque with the 1453 Ottoman conquest of Istanbul. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding leader of the secular Turkish republic converted the structure into a museum in 1934.
“Freedom of religion or belief is a foundational human right for everyone, of every faith and none. The right to choose, practice, express and change one’s faith – or have no faith at all – is the most basic freedom for any soul,” asserted 72 year old Myanmar cardinal.
“How does turning what was once the world’s largest cathedral into a mosque do anything except sow tensions, divide people and inflict pain?,” the cardinal asked.
The cardinal goes on asking, “How does placing Hagia Sophia into the hands of people who have no sense of its history and heritage and who will destroy its Christian identity help bring people together?”
He further asks, “How does seizing Hagia Sophia uphold Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?”
The cardinal has vehemently defended the rights of the persecuted Muslim peoples in Myanmar.
The cardinal insists, “True freedom of religion requires respect for others’ freedom to practice, as well as the exercise and defense of one’s own liberty.”
“For that reason,” the soft spoken Myanmar cardinal laments, “the decision in Turkey to turn what was for 1000 years the world’s largest Cathedral – Hagia Sophia – into a mosque grieves me.”
The cardinal who is President of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, continues, “It grieves me not because I want to deny my Muslim brothers and sisters places of worship. On the contrary, I defend their right to do so as much as I defend everyone’s.”
Giving details of his interventions for freedom of religion the Salesian cardinal says, “In my country, Myanmar, mosques have been razed to the ground and I have spoken out – frequently and at some risk. In China, the Uyghur Muslims are facing what amounts to some of the contemporary world’s worst mass atrocities and I urge the international community to investigate. In India and Sri Lanka Muslims have faced appalling violence and I have condemned such inhumanity.”
“Similarly, In Indonesia, Ahmadiyya Muslim mosques have been destroyed by other Muslims, and churches have been forcibly closed. In Iran the Baha’is face an intense assault on their freedoms, and in Syria and Iraq sacred places have been wantonly destroyed while, sadly, closer to home, we have seen the same phenomenon in China with shrines destroyed, the Cross removed from places of worship, and even churches, like Xiangbaishu Church in Yixing, demolished.”
The cardinal asserts, “Turning Hagia Sophia into a mosque represents a similar undermining of freedom of religion or belief, love for each other, respect for the dignity of difference.”
In conclusion, the cardinal reassures, “I will defend every mosque, every synagogue, every temple possible. And I know my fellow religious leaders working for peace would do the same for me. That’s the spirit we need – to respect and defend each other’s freedoms to worship as we wish, to express our faith in accordance with our traditions, to convert freely according to our conscience, but never to be coerced, never to impose and never to seize or grab.”
The cardinal concluded with a note of warning, “In previous epochs of history we know that the seizure of one another’s sacred and holy buildings and sites has caused untold distress and bitterness and in our generation we should not be so foolish as to repeat the mistakes of history.”