Over a year ago Sultan Erdogan promised that he would convert Hagia Sophia into a mosque, and he said this in retaliation for Trump recognizing the Golan Heights as the property of Israel. Well now he’s finally done it:
DAILY SABAH – Turkey’s top administrative court on Friday annulled the 1934 government decree that turned Hagia Sophia into a museum. The long-awaited ruling opens the way for Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia to be used as a mosque.
Upon the court’s ruling, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed a presidential decree to hand over Hagia Sophia to Turkey’s Presidency of Religious Affairs and open for worship while congratulating the Turkish people.
The court stated that Hagia Sophia is officially registered as a mosque in its deed, adding that it was decided its use for anything other than a mosque was legally not possible. “The Cabinet decision in 1934 that ended its use as a mosque and defined it as a museum did not comply with laws,” it said.
The fact that Erdogan did it so quickly after the court ruling shows that he was absolutely fulfilling his promise. In fact I would argue the courts were really doing Erdogan’s bidding on this, to make it seem ‘legal’. As you may recall, he purged the courts years ago and packed them with his own supporters.
But this has broader implications than simply a response to Trump. Matthew 24 tells us “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’[a] spoken of through the prophet Daniel…”. Of course Matthew 24 does talk about the end of Jerusalem that happened in AD 70, but as St. Jerome points out in his commentary on Matthew, this passage is also referring to the future Antichrist.
When Matthew 24 refers to the “abomination that causes desolation” standing in the holy place, we don’t know exactly what it’s referring to. Some believe that a Jewish Temple will be rebuilt in the end times and the antichrist will stand there, proclaiming himself to be God. But I don’t believe that’s a likely scenario because a Jewish Temple would no longer be considered a holy place by God after Jesus instituted the Church. Also the Bible doesn’t refer to the Temple, destroyed in AD 70, being rebuilt in the end times.
St. Jerome notes that the ‘holy place’ Jesus is referring to here is the Church, and I would agree with that. If you consider what we’ve discussed in the past, about how the Ottoman Empire is the 4th kingdom (legs) of the statue in Daniel 2 and the 7th kingdom referred to in Revelation 17, and how Erdogan is resurrecting the dead (mortally wounded) Ottoman Empire into the 8th kingdom, also referred to in Revelation 17, then I want to open you up to the possibility that Hagia Sophia could be the place where the antichrist one day stands declaring himself to be God. In fact it could be that when he does this he also launches the prophesied attack on Jerusalem, of which Ezekiel 38 refers. After all, it was the Golan Heights that pushed him to make this promise.
I should also note that the full name of Hagia Sophia, which was originally built in the 4th century by the decree of Emperor Constantine who made Christianity legal for the first time in the Roman empire, literally means Shrine of the Holy Wisdom of God. After it had been rebuilt for the final time (it had been burned down twice before) in 537, Emperor Justinian said upon entering it “Solomon, I have surpassed you.” My point is that if there ever were a church that could be called a ‘Temple of God’ or a ‘holy place’, it would be Hagia Sophia.
Again, we don’t know exactly what Matthew 24 is referring to when it says ‘holy place’. In fact Jerome suggested that the “abomination of desolation” standing in the “holy place” could also mean perverse doctrine within the Church. While I wouldn’t call it ‘doctrines’, we’ve certainly seen perverse teachings in the Church and last year’s Pachamama incident in the Vatican really threw up some major red flags. I mean they literally put an idol (which is what abomination of desolation means) in the Vatican for worship and veneration by these people from South America. I mean seriously, what the hell?
My point is that I’m not saying anything in absolute terms here. I just want to suggest that this could be what Matthew 24 is referring to and what St. Paul refers to in 2 Thessalonians 2 when he talks about the “man of lawlessness” (antichrist) setting himself up in God’s temple.