Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 88, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 April 1920 — The Sout of Constantinople [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Sout of Constantinople

WHEN Constantinople passes •ut of Turkish hands what, the religious world asks, will become of Aya Sofia? Is ft to remain a place of Moslem worship, or will that “greatest temple after St Peter’s” be rededicated to Christian use? So asks E. A. N. Valentine in Los Angeles Times. Whatever be the tolerance shown the creed of the Arab prophet in the Constantinople of the future, it is almost certain the cross will supersede the crescent on Justinian’s splendid monument to early Christianity. Its consecration to , the purposes for which it was reared is a duty owed the memory of its illustrious founder. Not even St Peter’s outrivals Aya Sofia in Interest Its history is inseparable, not only with Constantinople Itself, but with Christianity. The creation of Byzantium as the seat of the eastern Boman empire by Constantine the Great had a religious as well as a political motive. Made a convert tq the teachings of the Nazarene by the “In hoc signo vlnces” vision, he resolved to establish a new capital in which that faith should have exclusive sway, and his first act was to lay the foundations of the original basilica of “The Divine Wisdom” on which the present sane was rebuilt by his descendant, the author of the ‘•Pandects.** Byzantium was to be what Rome is today. It was through this successor of the Caesars and his Church of Aya Sofia, the See of the Greek Patriarchs, that Christianity tained her first great triumph over paganism. Aya Sofia may well be called the soul of Constantinople—the heartbeat of its long history—it has figured in all its various chapters of vicissitudes. Its variegated romance, on which rests an exotic bloom richer than any inventions of fancy.

On One of Seven Hille.

The cupola and flanking minarets of Aya Sofia, familiarized by paintings and photography, are what first catch the eye in approaching Constantinople by water. Dawn or sunset hour is the most favorable moment for that approach. the impressions of which stir the pulao of even the most sophisticated traveler. Visioned at dawn, with the city wrapped in light mist, faintly touched by blushes of a still hidden sun, the many mosques of Stamboul appear almost aerial, seem like vast rose-tinged soap bubbles afloat on the filmy sea, insubstantial as the fabric of dream, like the phantasmagoria evoked by hashish-eaters. Aya Sofia occupies one of the seven hills of Stamboul, that congested quarter of true Turkeydom, lying on the site of old Byzantium, on the Asiatic shore and separated from GalataPera, the cosmopolitan quarter, by the Golden Horn and from Skutari by the Bosporus. Of these superb summits it the nearest and most command Ing location. One sees it from almost every point of Constantinople and its environs. Yet like most else in the city, a near view does not enbflu happy impressions. When one has gained the square on which It is situated it is no longer like a pleasuredome of Kubla Kahn. The main cupola has lost both Ito silvery airiness and swelling proportions; the irregular mass, guarded by Ito four minarets, like giant pointed pencils, lacks warmth Of color and seems confused in design. Ito nucleus—the basilica of Justinian Struggles. Leocoon fashion, in the cnUa of Mohammedan encumbrance. Despoiled by the Turk. The Turk has despoiled Aya Sofia Of all that is not essential to the building. The heaped treasures of Justinian’s hands that once filled the sanctuary are gone; but there are still the rich materials out of which the basUica was constructed. Wh® one pass® through porphyry gates of the courtyard, ornamented with a fountain

where the Turk performs his unconvincing ablution before prayer. Into the mosque, one is at once impressed with what the glory of Aya Sofia must have been. Its cost of $5,000,000 was enormous for the times, and such, a drain on the exchequer of the empire that rigid economies in various departments were necessitated. One hundred thousand workmen were engaged in the consiruction, which was achieved in five years. Besides the amazing display of mosaic it is a liberal education in marbles. Marble of every kind known to the ancient world is there —marble of divers hue —black, green, cream and rose —marble veined, dappled, variegated and starred, marble from the near mines of Marmora, from Greece and Asia Minor, from Egypt, even from Ultima Thule. Famous temples were ravished to supply the innumerable pillars of the galleries and the pilasters of the walls. Some of these are from the Temple of the Sun at Baalbek; others from Thebes, from Palmyra, from Athens, from Rome itself. The structure, with its pofches and side aisles, is rectangular, and besides its main dome is roofed by minor vaults; It is the vast cupola of the nave that carries one away by its suggestion of a vast Inverted abyss. The least ponderable of practicable material was needed to sustain it r and this was found in volcanic pumice and Rhodian brick, that weigh but a fifth of the common variety. The dome, and Indeed the whole interior of Aya Sofia, is mosaic lined, representing Christ, the apostles and legions of saints. The Turk, whose, religion abhors human representations, covered these with gilded wash that, grown thin, suffers this Byzantium art to re-emerge in spots. Cartouches with sentences from the prophet and rosettes of gold have been stuck here and there?, and the childish decoration of ostrich eggs, together with bronze lamps and glass globes, the lattice work of the women’s galleries, the inlaid Mlnber or pulpit; the lecterns with old costly Korans open on them, the looped green linen with Arabic inscriptions hanging by silken cords from the celling, priceless carpets on the wall, the Mlnrab indicating the direction of Mecca, all proclaim the Mussulman’s house of prayer.

Aya Sophia.