Hagia Sophia - the Wisdom of God, Hagia Sophia of Constantinople, Hagia Sophia - a former patriarchal Orthodox cathedral, later a mosque, now a museum; the world-famous monument of Byzantine architecture, a symbol of the "golden age" of Byzantium. The official name of the monument today is the Hagia Sophia Museum.
During the Byzantine Empire, the cathedral was located in the center of Constantinople next to the imperial palace. Currently located in the historical center of Istanbul, Sultanahmet district. After the capture of the city by the Ottomans, the Sofia Cathedral was turned into a mosque, and in 1935 it acquired the status of a museum. In 1985, the Hagia Sophia, among other monuments of the historical center of Istanbul, was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
For more than a thousand years, St. Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople remained the largest church in the Christian world - until the construction of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome. The height of the St. Sophia Cathedral is 55.6 meters, the diameter of the dome is 31 meters.