Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew presided (from the Throne) today, Sunday, August 23, 2020, at the Divine Liturgy on the Leave-Taking (Apodosis) of the Feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, in the ruins of the Patriarchal and Stavropegial Monastery of Panagia Phaneromeni[*] in Kyzikos, Asia Minor. The Ecumenical Patriarch addressed the conversion of both Hagia Sophia and the Monastery of Chora into mosques:
"The fact is that the conversion of Hagia Sophia and now, of the Monastery of Chora, into mosques, has deeply pained us. These two unique monuments of Constantinople were built as Christian churches. They eloquently reveal the truth of the Incarnation of the Word of God, the beauty that saves the world. They express the ecumenical spirit of our faith; they speak of love and the hope of eternity. The incomparable mosaics and their other icons, are for the soul heavenly food and inexhaustible joy for the eyes, as Fotis Kontoglou from Ayvalik would say;[†] they belong to the entire world’s cultural heritage. We beseech the God of love, justice and peace, to enlighten the minds and hearts of those responsible."
=====
[*]The miraculous icon of the Virgin of Phaneromeni, a type of Hodegetria, was moved from the Monastery in 1922 to Constantinople and deposited in the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George in Phanar, where it is treasured to this day.
[†] Fotis Kontoglou (1895 – 1965) was from Ayvalik on the coast of Asia Minor, and is widely recognized as the greatest iconographer of the 20th Century and the leading exponent of the restoration of the Byzantine iconographic tradition.