Aya Sofya, Istanbul. Once the curch of churches, then the mosque of mosques, today the pilgrimage of pilgrimages. The Church of Hagia Sophia, associated with one of the greatest creative ages of man, was also the Cathedral of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople for more than one thousand years. Originally known as the Great Church, because of its large size in comparison with the other churches of the then Christian World, it was later given the name of Hagia Sophia, the Holy Wisdom of Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Justinian conceived the grandiose project of rebuilding the Great Church from its foundations. Nothing like it was ever built before or after. Construction work lasted five years [532-537] and on December 27, 537, Patriarch Menas consecrated the magnificent church.
