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Hagia Sophia

mosque, museum, and former church in Istanbul, Turkey

24 dated entries naming Hagia Sophia, drawn from 24 separate years between 342 CE and 2020 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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4th century

  • 342February 15 – The original Hagia Sophia is dedicated in Constantinople.source
  • 36014 February – The first Hagia Sophia church is consecrated in Constantinople.source

5th century

  • 468Basiliscus returns to Constantinople after a disastrous expedition against the Vandals. He is forced to seek sanctuary in the church of Hagia Sophia to escape the wrath of the people. Leo I gives him imperial pardon, but banishes him for 3 years to Heraclea Sintica (Thrace).source

6th century

  • 532February 23 – Emperor Justinian I orders the building of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia. He chooses Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles as architects. The material for the construction is brought from all over the empire, such as large stones from quarries in Porphyry, Egypt. More than 10,000 people are employed.source
  • 537December 27 – The construction of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (begun in 532) is completed.source
  • 558May 7 – In Constantinople, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapses due to an earthquake. Emperor Justinian I orders the dome to be rebuilt.source
  • 562December 23 – Justinian I re-consecrates Hagia Sophia after its dome is rebuilt. Paul the Silentiary, Byzantine poet, writes an epic poem (Ekphrasis).source
  • 563The new Hagia Sophia (cost: 20,000 pounds of gold), with its numerous chapels and shrines, octagonal dome and mosaics, becomes the centre and most visible monument of Eastern Orthodoxy.source

9th century

  • 802October 31 – Empress Irene is deposed after a 5-year reign, and banished to Lesbos. High-ranking patricians place Nikephoros, the minister of finance (logothetes tou genikou), on the throne. He is crowned in the Hagia Sophia at Constantinople, by Patriarch Tarasios, as emperor of the Byzantine Empire.source
  • 815Synod of Constantinople: A council led by patriarch Theodotus I, in the Hagia Sophia, reinstitutes iconoclasm.source
  • 820December 25 – Emperor Leo V (the Armenian) is assassinated by conspirators in the Hagia Sophia, at Constantinople. Though unarmed, he fights back fiercely but dies of his wounds. He is succeeded by Michael II, the commander of the palace guard (excubitores). Leo's family (including his mother and his wife Theodosia) are exiled to monasteries in Princes' Islands.source
  • 830June 5 – Emperor Theophilos, 16, marries the Armenian noblewoman Theodora, in the Hagia Sophia at Constantinople. He chooses her during a representation of a bride-show; she becomes empress (Augusta) of the Byzantine Empire.source
  • 869The Hagia Sophia Basilica (church) in Constantinople suffers great damage during an earthquake, which makes the eastern half-dome collapse. Basil I orders it to be repaired.source

10th century

  • 908May 15 – The three-year-old Constantine VII, the son of Emperor Leo VI (the Wise), is crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire by Patriarch Euthymius I at Constantinople. The ceremony is held in the Hagia Sophia. After the rituals, Constantine is crowned (symbolically) and becomes Leo's successor.source
  • 963August 16 – Nikephoros II makes a triumphal entry in Constantinople and is hailed as 'the conqueror'. He is crowned emperor in Hagia Sophia.source
  • 989October 25 – The Hagia Sophia at Constantinople is struck by a great earthquake, causing the collapse of the western dome arch. Basil II asks the Armenian architect Trdat, the creator of the Cathedral of Ani, to direct the repairs.source

11th century

  • 1042April 20 – Zoë is proclaimed as empress at an assembly in Hagia Sophia, along with her sister Theodora, as co-ruler. Michael V flees to the monastery of Stoudios, but is arrested, blinded and castrated.source
  • 1056Theodosius, a nephew of the former Emperor Constantine IX, tries to usurp the Byzantine throne, and liberates all the prisoners who flock to his banner. With their support, he marches through the streets of Constantinople to the Palace. There, the Varangian Guard forms outside to stop him. Theodosius loses heart and heads for Hagia Sophia. Later he is captured, and exiled to Pergamon.source

12th century

  • 1161December 24 – The widowed Emperor Manuel I Komnenos marries Maria of Antioch, aged 16, at Hagia Sophia.source

13th century

  • 1206August 20 – Henry of Flanders is crowned as the second emperor of the Latin Empire, in the Hagia Sophia at Constantinople, after hearing of the death of his brother, Emperor Baldwin I, who has died in prison at Baldwin's Tower in Tsarevets Castle, in Veliko Tarnovo (after being captured by the Bulgarians in 1205). Upon Henry's ascension as Latin emperor, the Lombard nobles of the Kingdom of Thessalonica refuse to give him allegiance.source
  • 1261August 15 – Michael enters Constantinople in triumph and is crowned as emperor of the Byzantine Empire at the Hagia Sophia. To solidify his claim, the legitimate ruler, John IV Laskaris, is blinded on Michael's orders on December 25, his 11th birthday. Michael banishes him to a monastery and marries his two sisters to lesser Latin and Bulgarian nobles in an attempt to wipe out the Laskarid dynasty.source

14th century

15th century

  • 1452December 12 – Isidore of Kiev, the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople, proclaims the union of the Greek and Latin churches at the Hagia Sophia in hopes of an alliance with Western Christians to prevent the loss of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks.source

21st century

  • 2020July 10 – Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan orders the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul to be reverted to a mosque following a supreme court annulment of a 1934 presidential decree that made it into a museum.source

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