Hagia Sophia

Justinian built the Great Church of Holy Wisdom in just five years and dedicated it in 537. Its huge dome seemed to float on light, and for nearly a thousand years it was the largest church in the world and the heart of Orthodoxy. The envoys of St. Vladimir said that at the Liturgy here they did not know whether they were in heaven or on earth. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 it became a mosque, then a museum in 1934, and a mosque again in 2020.

• Date: 537