The Byzantine Empire built the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople as a Christian cathedral in the sixth century.
Emperor Justinian I commissioned the present structure after riots destroyed an earlier church. Architects Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus designed it, and the building was completed in 537. Its enormous dome, pendentives, marble surfaces, and gold mosaics made it one of the most ambitious architectural works of late antiquity.
Hagia Sophia served as the cathedral of Constantinople and the principal church of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire. Its name means “Holy Wisdom,” referring to a title associated with Christ rather than to a person named Sophia.
After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the building became a mosque. It was converted into a museum in 1935 and redesignated as a mosque in 2020. Today it remains in Istanbul, a city that was known as Constantinople during the building’s Byzantine history.