1453: The Fall of Constantinople

Mehmet "The Conqueror" Enters Constantinople

Today marks the 554th anniversary of the Muslim conquest of Constantinople, certainly one of Chistendom's darkest days to date. It seems, unfortunately, that the city's history is not appreciated today as it should be. Rarely do we hear about the conquest and how the most beautiful Christian church in the world, Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), was converted into a mosque. Of course, the victorious Turks ransaked the city's innumerable churches, and thousands were killed or enslaved. The last emperor of Rome, Constantine XI, died heroically defending his city, his people and his empire.

An interesting historical anecdote: the last liturgy celebrated in Hagia Sophia was a Catholic Mass. The emperor had agreed, in principle, to a Catholic-Orthodox union months prior in the hope that desperately needed military aid would arrive from the West. Of course, it never came. The Greeks of the city refused to enter Hagia Sophia for some time because they viewed it as a lost church, defiled by the "heretical", boorish Latins. The night prior to the final conquest however, Latins and Greeks packed the Church (built over one-thousand years earlier by Justinian) to pray together for Divine deliverance. Past differences are easily forgotten in the face of imminent, mortal danger. Citizens processed through the streets chanting the Kyrie, carrying with them the city's most holy relics and stopping at each of the city's gates to implore God's protection from the belligerent Turks.

After the fall of Constantinople, Mehmet II, known as "The Conqueror" at only twenty-one, set his eyes set on Rome itself, hoping to reunite the defunct Roman Empire under Muslim rule. As sovereign of the New Rome, as Constantinople was called, Mehmet viewed himself as successor to the Roman Caesars. Understandably, news of his death was marked with jubilation in Rome and by the rest of Europe.

I came across this very well-written article on the event at American Spectator and thought to pass it along to the readers here.

http://spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11499

Hagia Sophia: Once a Church, then a Mosque, now a museum