Hagia Sophia, Istanbul: A Visitor’s Guide to Justinian’s Great Church

For almost fifteen centuries Hagia Sophia has dominated the first hill of Istanbul, above the point where the Bosphorus meets the Sea of Marmara. Built for the emperor Justinian I and dedicated in December 537, it has been the cathedral of the Byzantine emperors, a Latin cathedral under the Crusaders, the great imperial mosque of the Ottoman sultans, a museum for most of the twentieth century and, since 2020, a working mosque again. Each phase left something you can still see. This guide sets out that history, what visitors see inside today, and how access works now that worshippers and sightseers use separate routes. On Day 2 of our Small Group Tour of Ancient Turkey, the group visits Hagia Sophia between the Hippodrome and the Blue Mosque.

Justinian’s Great Church

The building you see is the third church on the site. The first, dedicated in 360, and a second built under Theodosius II in 415 both had timber roofs, and both were lost to fire during riots. The second burned in January 532, during the Nika revolt, when rival chariot-racing factions from the nearby Hippodrome joined forces against Justinian and very nearly drove him from his throne.

Justinian responded on a grand scale. Work on a new church began within weeks, in February 532, under two men better known as mathematicians and engineers than as builders: Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus. Their church was dedicated on 27 December 537, after less than six years. The Byzantines called it the Great Church; its name, Hagia Sophia, means Holy Wisdom, a dedication to Christ rather than to a saint called Sophia. For centuries it was where emperors were crowned, on a circle of coloured stone set into the floor known as the omphalion.

A dome that seems to hang from heaven

The genius of the building is its dome. Anthemius and Isidore set it over a square bay on four great arches, carrying the weight down through curved triangular sections called pendentives to four massive piers. No one had built a dome on pendentives at anything like this scale. A ring of forty windows runs around its base, so the dome appears to float on light; Justinian’s historian Procopius wrote that it seemed suspended from heaven by a golden chain.

The first dome proved too daring. Earthquakes in 553 and 557 weakened it, and on 7 May 558 part of it fell, destroying the altar beneath. Isidore the Younger, nephew of Isidore of Miletus, rebuilt it higher and steeper, and the church was rededicated in 562. The dome you see today is essentially his, repaired after later partial collapses. According to Türkiye’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, it rises 55.6 metres above the floor and measures just under 32 metres across from north to south, and slightly less from east to west. The building is about 100 metres long, and its two levels hold 104 columns: 40 below and 64 in the galleries.

From church to imperial mosque

Hagia Sophia’s first change of faith came in 1204, when the armies of the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople. For the next 57 years it served as a Roman Catholic cathedral, until the Byzantines retook the city in 1261. The decisive change came on 29 May 1453, when Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople and ordered the church converted to a mosque. He attended the first Friday prayer there a few days later.

The Ottomans added rather than demolished. A mihrab was set into the apse, angled towards Mecca, along with a minbar for the Friday sermon, and the four minarets were raised in stages over roughly a century. In the later sixteenth century the great architect Mimar Sinan, who studied the building closely before designing his own mosques, strengthened its walls with heavy buttresses; the Ministry notes that the dome has not fallen since. Most of the Christian figurative mosaics were gradually plastered or painted over. Between 1847 and 1849 the Swiss-Italian Fossati brothers restored the building for Sultan Abdülmecid, and the eight great calligraphic roundels, about 7.5 metres across, were made then by the calligrapher Kazasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi.

The museum years and the return to worship

After the founding of the Turkish Republic, the building was closed for restoration and then, by a cabinet decree of November 1934, made a museum. It opened to the public in 1935. Through the twentieth century, conservators uncovered and cleaned many of the Byzantine mosaics, and carpets were lifted to reveal the marble floors. In 1985 Hagia Sophia was inscribed by UNESCO as part of the Historic Areas of Istanbul World Heritage Site, which cites it as the model for “an entire family of churches and later mosques”.

On 10 July 2020 Türkiye’s Council of State annulled the 1934 decree, and Hagia Sophia reopened for Muslim prayer on 24 July 2020. It is now known as Ayasofya-i Kebir Camii, the Great Mosque of Hagia Sophia. For the background to the Ottoman centuries, see our introduction to the Ottoman Empire and its sultans.

What do visitors see in Hagia Sophia today?

Non-Muslim visitors see Hagia Sophia from its upper galleries, which now operate as a separate, ticketed visiting area. At the time of writing, the official visitor route takes you up a ramp to the gallery floor, where you look down over the prayer hall, its turquoise carpet, the mihrab and minbar, the calligraphic roundels and the Ottoman additions, then pass through the Marble Door, known as the Gate of Heaven and Hell, to the galleries that hold the main Byzantine mosaics.

Look for three panels in particular. The Deesis, on the west wall of the south gallery and usually dated to the thirteenth century, shows Christ between the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist; even damaged, its faces are some of the finest in Byzantine art. Nearby are two imperial panels: Empress Zoe with her third husband Constantine IX Monomachos, from the eleventh century, and John II Komnenos with his wife Irene of Hungary, from the twelfth. Above you, the vaults still carry sixth-century mosaics of gold glass with crosses and plant motifs, the oldest decoration in the building.

Expect some scaffolding. A long programme of earthquake strengthening on the main dome and semi-domes has been under way for several years, and the building has stayed open throughout.

How does entry to Hagia Sophia work for visitors?

Visitors enter through their own gate, separate from the worshippers’ entrance. Since January 2024, foreign visitors have used a temporary gate opposite the Fountain of Sultan Ahmed III, close to the Imperial Gate of Topkapi Palace, with the ticket office beside it; Muslims who come to pray use the main gate on Hagia Sophia Square and do not pay. The official visitor page says the gallery ramps and stairs are unsuitable for people with walking difficulties, who are asked to use the separate Turkish Citizen Entrance with their ticket. Museum passes are not valid here, and arrangements may change once restoration work allows the planned permanent entrance to open, so check the official page before you go.

When is Hagia Sophia closed to visitors?

The visiting area is open every day, but it closes for Friday midday prayers, from 12:00 to 14:00 at the time of writing. The official page also notes that the prayer area is closed to visitors until 10:00 each morning for cleaning, and daily prayer times move with the seasons. Opening hours differ between summer and winter, and the ticket office closes half an hour before the building, so check current times on the official site before you go.

What should you wear to visit Hagia Sophia?

Dress as you would for any mosque: shoulders and knees covered, and women with their hair covered. A light scarf in your day bag is the easiest solution; scarves and cover-ups can also be bought at the ticket booth. Be quiet and avoid photographing people at prayer, as the official visiting guidance asks. Shoes with good grip help on worn marble floors and ramps.

Hagia Sophia on Day 2 of the tour

On the tour, Hagia Sophia falls on a day that follows Constantinople’s story through the old imperial centre. The day begins at the Hippodrome, the Roman racecourse where the Nika riots started, then moves to Hagia Sophia and finishes at the Sultan Ahmed Mosque across the square, built between 1609 and 1616 and the subject of our guide to the Blue Mosque and its six minarets. A local English-speaking guide accompanies the group alongside the Odyssey Program Leader. The tour is rated Level 2, Moderate: three to five hours of activity a day, with up to 8 kilometres of walking on uneven ground.

Day 3 continues the story with Topkapi Palace, the Ottoman sultans’ residence next door, the Grand Bazaar, and the Basilica Cistern, built under Justinian a short walk from Hagia Sophia. For the wider history of the city, read Istanbul, the imperial city.

Hagia Sophia is the natural starting point for understanding Istanbul, because every power that held the city wanted to claim it. Our day-by-day outline of the 21-day route from Istanbul to Gallipoli shows how the city’s Byzantine and Ottoman layers lead on to Anatolia, Ephesus and the Dardanelles. On the Small Group Tour of Ancient Turkey, a small group of up to 16 travellers explores it with a local guide and an Odyssey Program Leader.