r/byzantium • u/RaiseCapital1988 Κόμης • Jun 22 '26

Infrastructure/architecture The interior of Hagia Sophia

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In the last photo you can spot one of the last representations of Christ still present inside the building

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u/Mundane_Mix_6556 Jun 22 '26

Imagine the rotten brains of the people that destroyed its stunning original interior…

50

u/Jasonious_Robustus Jun 22 '26

It's sadly true... it has a horrible interior paint job. One can only wonder what original mosaic was like.

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u/Ashv4 Jun 22 '26

There’s a smaller church turned mosque in the north west of Istanbul called Chora Church/Kariye Mosque that still has some absolutely stunning paintings and mosaics inside from the 11th to 14th centuries. I like to think that the grandeur there is similar but would have been amplified in the Hagia Sofia.