Today in 2020, Hagia Sophia, the 6th century mother church of Eastern Orthodoxy in Constantinople (above), was converted into a mosque by Turkey’s bullish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The church first became a mosque when Constantinople was conquered by the Turks in 1453, but became a museum in 1934. In preparation for Islamic worship, a giant turquoise carpet was laid, and the Christian mosaics, including one of the oldest images of the Virgin Mary carrying the Christ child, were covered up with white drapery. During its long history, Hagia Sophia was a church for 916 years; a mosque for 481, and a museum for 86. Its new status is ‘until the Day of Resurrection’, according to the inaugural 2020 sermon.
It is the feast day of St Charbel Makhlouf, the Maronite hermit from Lebanon who died on Christmas Eve, 1898. As a boy, Charbel kept his family’s small flock near a grotto, where he kept an icon of the Virgin Mary and prayed. As a monk, he spent 23 years living the solitary life of a hermit. He is a popular focus of prayer and healing for Lebanese Christians.
Today in 1621, a Tuesday, the Puritan Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbott, accidentally shot dead a gamekeeper, Peter Hawkins, while they were out hunting. Abbott was able to keep his job – not to mention his life and liberty – partly because the inquest decided that Hawkins died ‘by misadventure and his own fault’, and partly because King James liked him. Mortified by the accident, Abbott fasted one Tuesday a month for the rest of his life.
It is the feast of St Christina the Astonishing, the 12th century holy woman from Flanders. Her saintly careeer got off to a good start at the age of 21 when she died. During her funeral she floated up out of her open coffin and into the church roof. The priest insisted she come down, so she landed on the altar and told her ex-mourners that she had been to heaven, hell and purgatory, the whole tour. From then on, she lived in rags, travelling from place to place, throwing herself in burning furnaces or icy rivers without harm, and getting chased away by anxious villagers. Christina was undoubtedly a real person, whose bizarre life story was written by a contemporary, though opinions were divided about whether she was holy, mad or demon possessed. She died (this time for good) in 1224.
John Calvin asked to resign his ministry in Geneva today in 1553, being fed up of opposition and conflict. He was refused.
It is the feast of St Boris and St Gleb, the sons of Vladimir the Great, Russia’s first Christian King. When Vladimir died, early in the 11th century, the two brothers were martyred when they refused to defend themselves against their murderous brother, Svyatopolk. And so natural selection ensured that the throne went to the man most capable of carrying on medieval Christian tradition.
Image: Jorge Láscar