Day 09 - Istanbul

Final Reflections: Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and the Grand Hippodrome – Beauty and Tension in a City of Crossroads

We closed our journey through the lands of the New Testament and early church with a day in Istanbul — ancient Constantinople — where east and west, church and mosque, empire and republic all seem to converge in one breathtaking and complicated city. Our final visits took us to the architectural and cultural heart of old Constantinople: Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and the Grand Hippodrome.

Walking into Hagia Sophia is like walking into a living timeline. Built under the reign of Emperor Justinian I in 537 AD, the “Holy Wisdom” was the crown jewel of Byzantine Christianity, the largest church in the world for nearly a thousand years. The dome still seems to float overhead — an architectural miracle of its time. Standing beneath it, we reflected on Justinian’s declaration, “Solomon, I have surpassed you,” revealing both the ambition of the empire and the awe this place was meant to evoke.

But the mosaics of Christ, Mary, and the saints now share space — or tension — with Islamic calligraphy praising Allah, Muhammad, and the early caliphs. Since the Ottoman conquest of 1453, when Mehmed II converted the church into a mosque, the building has been a symbol of cultural conquest and spiritual adaptation. Its conversion back to a mosque in 2020 the tension was palpable inside. We were struck by the beauty — and by the questions: What does it mean to claim sacred space? What happens to memory when it is rewritten.

Just across the plaza stands the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, better known as the Blue Mosque for its dazzling interior tiles. Built in the early 1600s under Sultan Ahmed I, it was intentionally positioned to rival Hagia Sophia — an architectural conversation across centuries. The six minarets, towering above the skyline, signaled the growing reach and confidence of Islam in the Ottoman world.

Finally, we walked through the remains of the Grand Hippodrome — once the roaring heart of Byzantine public life. Little remains today except for the ancient Egyptian obelisk and the twisted Serpent Column, but here emperors rallied crowds, riots ignited (like the infamous Nika Riots under Justinian), and factions like the Blues and Greens collided in both sport and politics.

It was a place where power was performed and contested — where emperors were made and unmade by the will of the people. That felt hauntingly modern. The Hippodrome reminds us that political theater is nothing new. As we stood where thousands once cheered and rioted, we asked: Where does real change begin — in palaces, in crowds, or in quiet hearts?

As our tour came to a close, we found ourselves grateful not just for what we had seen, but for what we had wrestled with. These sites are undeniably beautiful — but they are also deeply complex. They force us to face difficult questions about power, faith, memory, and identity.

In a city built on the edge of continents and cultures, perhaps that tension is the point. Istanbul does not offer easy answers, but it gives us a rich, layered story — and the opportunity to consider how our own stories of faith and history fit into a much bigger mosaic.

Pray for safe travels for our group as we head home, carrying full hearts, challenged minds, and a deeper reverence for the One who still speaks, still leads, and still calls us to faithfulness in every land and every age.