The structure originally erected on the site of the Hagia Sophia was a Christian cathedral called the Megale Ekklesia, which was commissioned by the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine I. Prior to that, the site had been home to a pagan temple. It went through another religious conversion after the conquest of Constantinople by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1453, when it was designated a mosque. It would remain so for many centuries, until being secularized in 1934 by the Turkish Republic’s first president. It was converted into a museum a year later, a decision which remains controversial.
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