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HAGHIA SOPHIA- The first church to be built on this spot, dedicated to the Divine Wisdom, was officialy opened on February 15, 360 during the reign of Constantius, son of Constantine the Great. It was destroyed during the riots protesting the exile of the Patriarch John Chrysostome by Empress Eudoxia, wife of the Emperor Arcadius in 404. Reconstruction work was taken up by Theodosius II, Son of Arcadius in 408 and it was completed and dedicated in October 10, 415 to be again gutted by flames during the Nika Revolt in 532. Justinian immediately set out to build the church on a greater scale and commisioned the task to Anthemius of Traelles and Isidorus of Miletus, the two greatest architects of the age. The construction work was finished late in 538 and it was dedicated on December 26, Saint Stephen’s day of the same year. Sultan Mehmet the Conquerer, on the very same day he entered the city, May 29, 1453, converted it into a mosque and served as such for nearly five century. In 1935, by the will of the Founder of the Turkish Republic, Ataturk, it was declared a National Museum.
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