Talk:Hagia Sophia
alternate spelling
I've added the alternate spelling Ayia Sophia, as this is now the transliteration most Greeks prefer, and is the one provided on official Greek government literature. The "H" at the beginning represents a breath-mark in ancient Greek that no longer exists in modern Greek, but in any case was likely not pronounced like an English "h" would be. The "g" in the older transliteration represents a gamma, which has a sound somewhat between a "g" and a "y"; however, in this context, it clearly is much closer to a "y". (The shift is somewhat analogous to the Indian government renaming Bombay to Mumbai and the Chinese government renaming Peking to Beijing.) Delirium 07:53 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- I have corrected the spelling from "Sophia" to "Sofia". Sophia is the Latin version of the name: proper spelling and usage is Sofia. Elias Bizannes 18:02, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
- The "correction" made is in fact not to the most common English usage. The most common English usage (which is what dictates Wikipedia naming convention; see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)) is Hagia Sophia. Google yields 391,000 hits for Hagia Sophia, but only 76,800 for Hagia Sofia. Additionally, Hagia Sophia is the spelling in both the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium and the Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity.
- It is true that that spelling comes from Latin, but then again, so do many English usages regarding Greek subjects. For instance, the Wikipedia article for the sainted hero of the First Council of Nicea is spelled as Athanasius, and not Athanasios. The same goes for Ignatius of Antioch.
- This name change should not have been enacted without a discussion first. I've reverted the changes. —User:ASDamick/sig 01:31, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
- Apologies for not dıscussing it fırst but I acted because despıte common usage, it is so obviously wrong. Using the other major search engines, wıth the alternate prefixes of agia and ayia, yield higher results for Sofia. Furthermore, the spelling of the name sofia as a sıngle word is more common then Sophia, usıng any search engine. This may be because of the capital of Bulgaria skewıng the results. But lookıng deeper at that, the city of Sofia also got ıts name from a church wıth the same name, ın the city.
- Nevertheless, the PH ın the name does stretch the name a bıt, renderıng the pronouncıatıon closer to the orıgınal name ın Greek, as readers saying sofia mıght pronounce ıt as sof-ya, rather than the correct so-phee-a. It ıs still wrong, but arguing over names ıs petty, so do what you want. Elias Bizannes 13:08, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
- Common usage is precisely what determines the "right" and "wrong" of spelling in any language. Dictionaries and encyclopedias, after all, simply represent what the consensus is—they can't dictate it. A culture will spell words how it likes, and in this case, English speakers tend to want to spell this subject as Hagia Sophia.
- One could just as easily argue (probably with more grounds, in fact) that this name shouldn't be spelled with anything but Greek letters, that Latin letters are inherently wrong. —User:ASDamick/sig 21:35, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
I offered to end the argument because I could not be bothered but we can continue if you insist. First of all, using SoPHia implies a cultural bias. Secondly, Hagia Sophia is as common as the other variants, rendering the Wikipedia naming convention of common usage not applicable. Thirdly, if there is no commonly used English name, the convention asks for an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language.
Sophia is common usage. But so is the alternate spelling of Sofia. (Using other search engines show a smaller gap). The 'common usage' of the term Hagia Sophia is by no means the majority view. Furtehrmore your search engine methodology is distorted, because it takes advantage of the three different spellings of 'Hagia' hence splitting the commonly held view of spelling sofia/sophia. Searching Sofia as a single term is by far more 'common usage'. And using the prefixes of agia and ayia, yield higher results for Sofia.
If "English speakers tend to want to spell this subject as Hagia Sophia" why is it there are so many different types of spellings with no dominant and majority view? Despite your attempts to represent the Crusade for how English speakers REALLY want to spell things, the answer to my question is because transliteration is opinion. Opinion is not fact. And in our case, there is not single common usage.
On a direct Greek-to-Latin translation it is 'Agia Sofia' with the 'g' open to interpretation because there is no direct latin character equivilant. The sound is a mix between Y and G. For that reason, I don't argue about Hagia/agia/ayia and leave it to linguists more intelligent than me. But what justification is there to spell it as Sophia rather than Sofia? soPHia is a western european interpretation - the same guys that bagged out anything to do with the Byzantine Empire up until recently. I am not going to go into that, but people who know about Byzantine hisory know it has been distorted. And the spelling implies a cultural bias - like the cultural bias of the Byzantine empire. Whilst English is a western European language, the English encyclopedia is transnational. Seeing as the PH sound is exactly the same as the F sound, why insist on PH, when F is closer to the truth?
Because of the distortion of the search results with the first word, shouldn't we be using common usage for 'sofia' instead? Given the games Google is currently playing with its 'guess how many pages we can index' it may be more accurate to rely on the other engines15:52, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
dates
Hagia Sofia, according to my information, was consecrated by Emperor Justinian in December 563. This does not quite fit with the construction dates in the main page. Does anyone have more accurate information? 203.79.72.140
- I wouldn't think any emperor would do the actual consecration; that should have been done by a bishop or patriarch. According to this web site, "on December 27, 537, Patriarch Menas consecrated the magnificent church." That date is also confirmed here. That also says that Hagia Sofia was actually the third temple at that ___location, and the work done in the 530s was a rebuilding from the foundations. Wesley
- Your evidence looks good to me. The reference I have (a guidebook) is that on Christmas Eve, 563, Justinian inaugurated' the Church. (in the last months of his reign). Vignaux
- First off, in English we use 'church' rather than 'temple' for Orthodox, Catholic, and most Protestant worship buildings.
- Second, Constantine built a Hagia Sophia in the 320s - it was a basilical church, shaped and decorated much like St. Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome (like the 4th century church of St. Peter's and the 4th century Church of St. John Lateran, too, but the first of those was replaced and the second so remodeled you can't tell). Constantine's H.S. was burned in the Nike Riot of 532. The initial rebuilding (in the present form) was complete by 537. The central dome collapsed about 20 years later and was rebuilt. That's where the 563 comes from - so it wasn't consecrated, but re-consecrated (if that). MichaelTinkler
- Thanks for the additional history. In my very limited time in the Orthodox Church in America, it's been my experience that buildings are typically called 'chapel', 'temple', or 'cathedral', by native speakers of English. Sometimes 'church' is used as well. Is there any particular reason why the sentence about the mosaics on the floor being uncovered was deleted? Was that thought to be inaccurate or irrelevant? Seems relevant to me, if true. Wesley
- The sentence about the mosaics on the floor being uncovered was not deleted, it was just moved to chronological order. Hephaestos
- Really? I've walked by a church just east of Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis on which a conspicuous sign says "Saint Mary's Greek Orthodox Church". I think it says that on their web site too. In My Big Fat Greek Wedding the sign on the church said "Greek Orthodox Church" (I think it was preceeded by a name). And when a church across the street from the World Trade Center was nearly (or totally?) destroyed on 9/11/2001, it was identified in a newspaper article I read about it as being a "Greek Orthodox Church" and its priest was quoted as saying something about "my church". Could it be that your experience of Russian-affiliated churches has exposed you to language different from that of Greek-affiliated ones? Michael Hardy 02:45 Jan 14, 2003 (UTC)
- I think that a variety of uses can be found. For instance, in this list of OCA parishes in Alaska (http://www.oca.org/pages/directory/list_results.asp?___location=AK&B1=Submit), you can see the names of various parishes ending with Church, Mission, Deanery, Chapel, Cathedral, and even Community. Looking for Greek Orthodox parishes in California turned up mostly Churches, but also a few Chapels and Cathedrals: http://www.goarch.org/en/parishes/ParishSearch.asp?parish=&clergy=&State=CA&city=&SearchRadius=15&SearchZip=&Diocese=&btnSubmit.x=51&btnSubmit.y=12&offset=10. When it comes to stuff like this, it's not surprising to find a variety of sorts of names in use. But you're right in that there doesn't seem to be any special effort to avoid calling the place a "Church", and to keep this relevant, it looks like the place in question was called the Church of Hagia Sophia. Wesley 16:12 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- Being Greek it is my understanding that the best word to use is church. A Greek orthodox "building" of any kind would certainly never be called a cathedral. It is to my best knowledge a word used by every other christian dogma than Orthodoxes for reasons unfortunately not known to me. Communities and missions might have a greek translation but not meaning a church and rather a mission in it's original meaning in English. You could call the really small churches chapels. The original Greek word is 'ekklisia' which is ancient greek and means gathering-in this case as it has been used in christian times, gathering of the people to worship god. In classical Greece and namely in the democratic Athens ekklisia tou dimou (gathering of the citizens) was their means for commonly deciding matters. It is obvious that the popoulation was less!
- And by the way tha Ayia Sofia is really magnificent. I've been there and so should every one else.
- Hoping to have enlightened you. Gerasimos
- A cathedral is a church where the head priest is a bishop. If the Hagia Sophia was used by the bishop of Constantinople, then it is a cathedral. David.Monniaux 07:11, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
a may 7 anniversary
An event mentioned in this article is a May 7 selected anniversary (may be in HTML comment) --User:Maveric149 08:28, May 3, 2004 (UTC)
illustration Blue Mosque
Why in the world is an article on the Hagia Sophia illustrated with a picture of the interior of the Blue Mosque? Why is that image there at all? --Delirium 23:16, May 7, 2004 (UTC)
translation
I changed this part, because I don't think it's true:
- Αγια Σοφια in Greek that means "Holy Wisdom", not "Saint Sophia" except in mistranslation
It can mean either, as Άγια means holy and Σοφία is both wisdom and a Greek name that derives from the word wisdom. Therefore Saint Sophia is written in Greek as Άγια Σοφία. Now whether the church was intended to be named after Wisdom, after St. Sophia, or after both, is another matter, but the translation itself is not incorrect. --Delirium 22:25, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)
I object to this statement
"This means that Muslims do not have to confront Christian imagery in the main chamber of the building, which was a mosque for nearly 500 years."
It is an opinion and has nothing to do with Hagia Sophia.
It is not an opinion, it is a perfectly factual statement. Adam 09:23, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
Here is my take about this "crap" : Last time I've been to Ayasofya I don't remember paying anything to go up the stairs. But even IF I had to pay (it's a museum, they may decide to charge if they want) it would not mean that muslims are spared of pictures of a guy who died 2000 years ago. The cause and effect of this sentence is a bit weird don't you think: "you have to pay to go up, so this means muslims don't have to see pictures" ??? If people don't want to see a picture of a saint, then they don't climb upstairs, even if it's free. The sentence in the article sounds like by making it fee-based, they spare muslims or something. I don't even understand what this sentence is trying to tell. Hence, it's a total bullcrap in short. I propose to remove it. I am also not comfortable with other things in the article, but this one is totally stupid, besides the fact that it's POV which doesn't belong here.
- It's not POV -- it's conjecture. It's perhaps not written in the clearest fashion, but the conjecture is that only icons in the upper galleries are being uncovered, so as not to offend the iconoclastic doctries of Islam. --User:ASDamick/sig 19:23, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
- There's a little difference btw. conjecture and POV. Here's my conjecture: the mosaics and
icons are being uncovered starting from top to allow for maximum amount of visiting time. Had they started from bottom, nobody could visit the museum. How about this? In 21st century, Turks do not care much about the "iconoclastic doctrines". I propose to remove the conjecture. Also, please see below about restorations.
- Update: the following photo was taken in Dec. 2004, showing the entrance. So much for your conjecture. You can reach this photo from the link in the article.
Restorations
Regarding the discussions about restoration, please read the following documents and modify the article appropriately. The building was NOT "allowed to decay".
http://www.islamicarchitecture.org/architecture/hagia.sophia.mosque.html http://www2.arch.uiuc.edu/research/rgouster/hagiasophia/hs.html http://archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.tcl?site_id=2966 http://www.unesco.org/archi2000/pdf/ozil.pdf
I don't dispute that the Christian mosaic above the entrance is visible as shown in the photo, but nevertheless I was told by a Turkish tour guide in 2002 that the reason the majority of the Christian mosaics in the main (ground floor) body of the church had not been uncovered is that this would offend Muslims, since the building was a mosque for 500 years. Adam 05:15, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Well, unfortunately there are enough idiots in Turkey as well as in any country and some of them are tour guides for a living. Or maybe he wasn't able to communicate properly, the mosaics were covered as long as the museum was a mosque obviously, but christian mosaics doesn't offend anybody today. Also, if you go through links I provided in restoration above, you'll see that one of the purposes of the restorations was to preserve the different periods of history of Hagia Sophia, and different modifications done to it throughout history. It would offend me if they had gotten rid of everything done to it since 1453, because it is certainly a part of its history and in a museum you should preserve every period. Right now, you can see the influences of different periods in a balanced way.
- Is it really necessary or helpful to characterize other editors' sources as "idiots"? One would at least hope that a person making such a characterization could be bothered to register for a Wikipedia account rather than appearing only behind the semi-anonymous mask of a mere IP address. --User:ASDamick/sig 19:15, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
- Remaining anonymous is a choice, which shouldn't bother you at all. "sources" is a sensitive subject, citing people's opinions on the street hardly constitutes an objective source. I at least bothered to find objective sources on the internet and listed them instead of writing my own (or somebody else's) opinion. Anybody who's offended by a saint's picture in an old church (or islamic art in an old mosque) is an idiot in my book, and that's my opinion, which I didn't put in the article.
- Yes, but you did put it in what ought to be a well-mannered discussion between editors. Additionally, the URLs you posted had no bearing on the question of why the mosaics have been uncovered in the particular way they have. What if others simply characterized your sources as being those of idiots? After all, just because something is on the Internet doesn't make it either objective or accurate.
- In any event, I can't say that I put very much stock in the opinions of someone who won't even register for an account and then acts in such a fashion. You even followed me to my weblog and posted an anonymous comment there, as well. I can't say that I find it altogether worthwhile to try to work on this article with you. --User:ASDamick/sig 20:50, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
- If you look at my sources you'll see that they are at least either on university or professional web sites. I have no idea why they started from top, you don't either, that's why we shouldn't put any comments on that in the article. What is a fact today is that a lot of mosaics are uncovered, both at the top and at the bottom, and as I said before, the idea is to preserve all periods, not just one.
- Yes I posted something on your weblog, which was my opinion on the subject, and I don't know why you have a problem with that, you made your weblog public but you can remove my comment from it if you want. Being anonymous is my choice and you have to respect that, whether you want to work on any article in wikipedia is your choice. If you decide to work on anything, the least you got to do is to be as objective as you can and think twice before putting something in an article that is baseless and will infuriate people for that reason. This article is far from being perfect, I will read more and try to contribute to it if I have time in future, but I am not planning to respond to your comments, unless they are related to facts.
- Like many Turks, I am sick and tired of people who pay couple of visits to Turkey and start thinking of themselves as some kind of an expert. I may have used a few words that are not polite, but I am very frustrated about some of the stuff people write in wikipedia articles about Turkey, it is one thing to "bend" the truth, it's a totally different thing to write something that is plain wrong. These articles should not be about opinions, but facts, and that requires little more effort than just citing a tour guide. After all, I have lived a big part of my life in Turkey, but I still refer to reputable sources when I modify a wikipedia article about Turkey. And I hope this is the end of this little strayed discussion.
- Well, at least you have stated your bias forthrightly, i.e., that you are representing a Turkish POV. For that, at least, we can be grateful. --User:ASDamick/sig 21:48, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
- Everybody represents their own POV, you, as a devoted Christian, represent your own POV too. I do not, however, include my POV in any article, hence I stand corrected.
What the tour guide said was not that uncovering the mosaics would offend Turks, but that it would offend Muslims. There are other Muslims in the world beside Turks. The guide was not an idiot. As a historian I had a long talk with him about Greek and Turkish history and asked him quite difficult questions, and he was a very intelligent and well-informed person. If I have to choose between his opinion and that of an abusive anonymous editor here on why the mosaics have not all been uncovered, I will choose his, thanks. And I am not a Christian by the way. Adam 01:41, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- I did offer an alternate explanation, if you read correctly what I wrote. "It WOULD OFFEND ME if they had gotten rid of everything SINCE 1453" and "EVERY period should be presented in a museum". If a structure is used as a mosque for 500 years, of course you don't want to uncover everything at the expense of islamic art. I am NOT abusive, I am trying to make a point, whether you want to accept or not. I do not understand why being anonymous lessens the value of contribution, had I had a name, would that put more weight on my point? By the way, my comment about being a good christian was to ASDamick, not to you. He was the one to stretch this discussion to places which had nothing to do with my point, and I'm afraid nobody gets my point, so be it.
Discussion of "de-Islamized image"
- Lectiodifficilior is moving this discussion from his talk page and from his revert explanation.
The edit: User User:CristianChirita added the image and text to the right.
Revert explanation: Lectiodifficilior removed the image with rv; we are not putting a "religiously cleansed" image—all muslim traces photoshopped out—on top. Good grief the POV
Talk message from Lectiodifficilior to User:CristianChirita:
The image you posted is not an "Artistic Representation" it's a "cleansed" representation, with all Muslim elements removed. This is the very definition of POV, akin to Photoshopping the Dome of the Rock from Jerusalem, or NYC from Manhattan. I also wonder about its copyright status. I saw that image somewhere once, and I did not have the impression if was GLFD. Lectiodifficilior
Response by User:CristianChirita:
1.Yes indeed the image I've posted is an "Artistic Representation" with a "cleansed" representation, with all Muslim elements removed. I don't consider the umage as POV because was a time when the image of church was looking in this way. It is not something fantastic but an artistic representation of the church before the muslim coquest. I don't think that a recostruction of an image hurt someones feelings.I also wonder about its copyright status: the image is declared PD on orthodoxwiki , the te link on the image page.
Considering the history of the church I don't think taht the reconstruction will hurt muslim feeling, because they must be very proud that the church was preserved almoust 100%.
Q: How can you picture a former Orthodox Greek church? please reconsider the POV, is interesting from historic point of view, and remember that the church was protected and preserved when the Constantinopole fall. CristianChirita 07:12, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Response by Lectiodifficilior:
Whenever I've seen those images, it has been in decidedly POV contexts. For example, this page has two examples of the genre, together with a lot of spleen directed at the "heathen Turk." Notably, the representations are not of the church as it was, but as it should be or at least in some alternate-reality universe ("Hagia Sophia idealized," "the cross restored", "as it might appear today"). I at least get the unsettling feeling that an "idealized" Istanbul street scene would include mass graves for all the Turks. Similarly, I found image you are posting on an extremely POV site here, together with the minarets reassembled together. The site writes:
It is suggested that with due care and deference the columns be disassembled by pieces in numerical order and returned to their interested owners for legitimate relocation other than to sites of Christian worship."
(The image, on the right, is placed here on the doctrine of fair use, which allows even copyrighted images to be used in the service of commentary and criticism. I have my doubts about the PD nature of these two images.)
I think both the text and the companion image demonstrate conclusively that it is intended to show Hagia Sophia as it should be not as it was. Thus, in origin, the image is POV.
Origin aside, is it still useful as a way to picture the church "as it was"? I don't think so. If you tell the reader the minarets are added (that would be a good addition to the picture caption), how much trouble is he really going to have picturing it? It should also be noted that a number of other minor architectural features are also of post 1453 origin, mostly there to shore up the edifice against falling down.
Lastly, if we're going to admit this image, I vote we also admit one of the Fossati brothers' pictures of Hagia Sophia/Aya Sofya operating as a mosque, with the lamps, carpets, wooden dividers and etc. This would achive NPOV by balance. Lectiodifficilior 15:16, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Side note: The current image isn't so good. It's all trees and minarets. I don't think this is a POV issue—a tree-hugging Muslim perhaps? But it would be nice to get something that shows more of the structure. Lectiodifficilior
I'm not insisting in putting the image. I've my opinion that the image of the church how it was it is important. We agree to disagree. If you consider the religios considerations there will be a never ending discussion. But if you are interested of how the work was performed, then the image is interesting. And considering the quality of the two picture I must confess that the building with minarets is more beautifull. And the most important thing is that erasing the images from wiki is not solving the issue, letting the image on the discussion page and explaining why it is POV is solving the situation. CristianChirita 20:24, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I agree to agree to disagree. I don't like the provinance of that image, but I don't object in principle to a "reconstruction" image, particularly if the mosque interior is also presented. Sorry not to get back sooner. I was hoping others might have feelings on this topic. Even if we can agree on a compromise, I generally feel two people are too little to decide anything on Wikipedia. Does anyone else have feelings on this? Lectiodifficilior 29 June 2005 22:44 (UTC) You have proved that the image source is not ok. I hope that somone will make a reconstruction someday, maybe some request for images of the interior should be also usefull.CristianChirita 30 June 2005 07:14 (UTC)
I think that the above image settle the issue.CristianChirita 09:28, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Photos
It's actually quite difficult to get a decent wide-angle photo of Agia Sofia because of the density of the trees in the surrounding parkland. Here is one of mine which shows a little more the building than the one currently used.
On the other issue, I don't see that there is anything wrong of a representation of the building as it looked before 1453 provided it is clearly labelled as such. There is nothing anti-Islamic about this. After all it was built as church and was a church for 1,000 years. It only became a mosque when it was seized by force by the Ottomans. Adam 30 June 2005 07:33 (UTC)
- Can the parked vans and such be cropped from the bottom before this goes onto the article? --Wetman 30 June 2005 23:16 (UTC)
I agree that they are not very sightly, but cropping the photo would erase the visual relationship between the church and the ground, and leave it floating above the treetops. The building is located in a modern city, and this is what it looks like. I think altering the image in the interests of beautification would be in effect an editorial statement about what ancient buildings "ought" to look like. Adam 30 June 2005 23:55 (UTC)
100 Most Endangered Sites
I removed this tag, as this structure was misidentified as being on the list. The structure on the World Monuments watchlist is the Little Hagia Sophia, also in Istanbul. BrainyBroad 06:55, July 22, 2005 (UTC)