CONSTANTINOPLE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 124, 19 February 1919, Page 7

CONSTANTINOPLE

■ ! ' : AND ITS FAMOUS CHUECH. "What is to be the fate 'f that famous church of St. Sophia in Constantinople?" asks the "Church Times." "This, city was the first in the world to -bo organised on a Christian basis. .

"The Ottoman sword is broken. The natural consequenc.; is that Constantinople should revert to its (rue character as a Greek city, "What is true of the city is eminently brua of the Church of St. Sophia. The practice of Mussulman conquerors in regard to Christian churches lias been curiously varied. In some cases they have been reserved for their original use, and religiously guarded. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem is tho most conspicuous oxamplo of this treatment. In' other cases, they have been expropriated and converted into mosques. This, again, is a matter .of more conquest. _ It is seldom or never a case of the building, devoted to religious uses, being carried ovea , conformably with a change in the religious beliefs of the population. ■ "The conquest is a thing of the past; they who took the sword have perished bv the sword. The Ottoman Empire has crumbled into ruin. Ono happy result of the war, is • the disappearance of the. Turkish legend from tho public opinion of Ensland. The latest evidence of its disappearance comes 'from a quarter where it was strongest and., most persistwit a finishing blow being ..the. discovery that the. Turks are claiming to be unbeaten.' The beatinsr must be made mam-, fes't. It is fitting that the symbol should follow the reality. If Constantinople recovers its true character as a .Greek city, it will he utterly unreasonable to refuse St. Sophia the. restoration of its true ohiiiacter as a-. Greek church. • '"There'is but one voice • against the double restoration. It is the voice that bids us beware of offending Mussulman susceptibilties, especially in India. We cannot' believe that. , Indian or Arabian Mussulmans 'regard Constantinople with the same kind of reverence-as Mecca or Jerusalem. It is- absurd to speak ot it as a City of Islam in, the,same, sense, ■a 3' Cairo or Damascus ox Bagdad. It is a-comparatively recent conquest of the Ottoman Turks, who have been the consistent oppressors, of the true Mussulmans ■of Arabia. -The plea is unreasonable. ■■ Mr 4 - C. Yate, in a letter to the: "Spectator,",states:-The "last ditch" of the partisans of the Ottoman /Caliphate is the contention that the Moslem, world, and especially the Moslems of India, subjects'of the British Grown, will strongly -resent -the severance of the •Caliphate from, the Sultanate of Rum. William Muir concludes his "Caliphate: Its Bise,Decline, and Fall" ,(1891) with • these "Were there no other bar, the Tartar blood : which flows in their veins would mak?; the' claim" [to/the Caliphate] unten-: "I seo the Turks, spoken of as the .'trus-tees'-of-Constantinople in the eyes of Islam. The Tua-k-in the'role of 'Public Trustee' may invite a satiric vein of humour,'but not inspire confidence. Which is dearer'to the Moslem eye, Jeru; salem with its Mosque of Omar and Holy Sepulchre, with which radical elements, of-the faith of Islam are bound up, or. Constantinople with St. Sophia, which passed-% mere conquest into the hands, of the Turks.in 1453? The Moslems of India .have accepted with the most perfect philosophy the transfer of Jerusalem from Turkish to British rule. A • like philosophic tolerance will attend the mternatipnalisation of Constantinople.