Christian angel plays peek-a-boo at Turkish mosque. Muslims scream “Oh God!”

Posted: July 27, 2009 in Above the Fold, Religion Potpourri
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Once in a while, a real-life “Indiana Jones” story takes place and makes my Seminarian sweat glands work overtime where My Fair Lady gets to meet my inner history dork.

Why? Imagine the Roman Empire. No, really.

You know, outside of a clear unibrow working, she's cute for a 2500-year-old.

You know, outside of a clear unibrow working, she's cute for a 2500-year-old.

You see, not all roads lead to Rome. Just ask Emperor Constantine who believed even his Roman roads led to the Cross of Christ.

So much so that he established his own headquarters in Byzantium or Constantinople, which is now known as Istanbul, Turkey.

That once Christian powerhouse is now home of Muslim central outside of Mecca.

Why the history lesson?

Thanks to MSNBC, we discover archaeologists were digging around a former Constantine crash site, the Haghia Sophia, and were touched by an angel… literally.

The seraphim figure — one of two located on the side of a dome — had been covered up along with the building’s other Christian mosaics shortly after Constantinople — the former name for Istanbul — fell to the Ottomans in 1453 and the cathedral was turned into a mosque.

Sure beats a summer cottage in the Hamptons

Sure beats a summer cottage in the Hamptons

The Haghia Sophia (seen here), better known as the Church of Holy Wisdom, was the centerpiece of the Byzantine empire until the Muslims took it over.

And once they kicked the good Christian folk out of the place, the Imams went looking for angelic faces in the frescoes because Muslim custom prohibits human representation.

So, the Muslim clerics went to a local Home Depot and bought buckets of plaster. Fast forward more than 2,500 years later and we find some angel staring back like she walked out of a plastic surgeon’s shop.

Some of the mosaics were revealed when the domed complex was turned into a museum in 1935, but the seraphim had largely remained covered, Ahmet Emre Bilgili, who heads culture and tourism affairs in Istanbul, told The Associated Press. “It is the first time that the angel is being revealed,” he said, adding that the figure had been covered with metal and plaster. “It is very well preserved.”

Breathtaking. Not one wrinkle, crow’s feet (or foot, as it were) or liver spot. That cherub still looked resplendent. And never mind her bulging eyebrows. It’s an angel. And now, Muslims are questioning this as an act of God – ours, not theirs.

For nothing will be impossible for God (Luke 1:37 NASB).

God can use anything to reach anyone at anytime. Halleujah.

Comments
  1. G. Kapellas says:

    Re: Captioned “peek-a-boo Turkish mosque” ????? July 27, 2009
    That’s the AS BUILT ~ GREAT CHURCH OF CHRIST, HAGIA SOPHIA, and now “used” as a museum, regardless of whatever use it was temporaily expropriated for. You wouldn’t identify the PARTHENON as a munitions hanger.
    Much thanks,
    G. Kapellas

Leave a comment