Turkey's Erdogan attends first prayers at Hagia Sophia since mosque conversion

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended Muslim prayers at Istanbul's Hagia Sophia on Friday, the first since the iconic place of worship in Istanbul was converted back into a mosque, CGTN reports.

First built as a cathedral in the Christian Byzantine Empire, the UNESCO World Heritage site in historic Istanbul was repurposed as a mosque in 1453, following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. 

In early July, Turkey's highest administrative court, the Council of State, reversed a decision made in 1934 by modern Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, to make the site into a museum. 

Following the ruling, Erdogan ordered that the place of worship be reopened for prayer. 

During morning prayer, Erdogan recited a verse from the Koran, and later, the head of the state religious affairs agency, Ali Erbas, delivered the Friday sermon inside Hagia Sophia, holding a sword as a symbol of conquest.

"The reopening of Hagia Sophia ... is the return of a sacred place, which had embraced believers for five centuries, to its original function," Erbas told the congregation.