Pope Francis has said he is “very distressed” at Turkey’s decision to convert the Byzantine-era monument Hagia Sophia back into a mosque, The Guardian reports.
“My thoughts go to Istanbul. I’m thinking about Hagia Sophia. I am very distressed,” he said, in the Vatican’s first reaction to the decision. Hagia Sophia was originally built as a cathedral and was converted to a mosque in the 15th century. However, in the early 20th century Turkey's then-secular rulers decided that it should become a museum.