Members of the “International Parish of Hagia Sophia Association” stated during a press conference at the Hellenic American Union in Athens, that there isn’t any progress regarding the law suit against Turkey.
A law suit in which the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg is handling, states that members of the association had requested that Hagia Sophia will once again become a Christian Orthodox Church.
The President of the association Chris Spyrou, mentioned that when the association was established in 2005, he personally asked Turkish government officials and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to stop the desecrations and all the activities which abuse the sacredness of Hagia Sophia.
Mr. Spyrou added that under the scope of the human rights and the freedom to exercise religious duties, which every citizen of the world has the right to enjoy, believed that the time had come and their demand would be considered logical.
The legal counselors of the case, Achilleas Dimitriadis and Kostas Paraskevas, noted the appeal against Turkey is more than 350 pages and was delivered on March 10th, 2011 at the Court of Human Rights. The first stage of the procedure has already been completed.
In their interview, they condemned the fact that on September 17th, 2010, members of the association were prevented from travelling to Istanbul, in order to hold a church service at Hagia Sophia. As Mr. Spyrou stated, the Turkish ambassador in Athens wrote a letter and said that holding a church service “at the Museum of Hagia Sophia, is a provocative action which undermines the law and public order in Turkey, and as in any democratic country such actions are not permitted.”
Consequently, members of the “International Parish of Hagia Sophia” held a church service at the Greek-Turkish borders in the parks of Evros.
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