Hagia Sophia, The Gate of Heaven

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. We arrived in Istanbul about 7:00 A. M., and the first sight I saw from our balcony was the Hagia Sophia. It also turned out to be the first place we visited. It is not difficult to imagine the Emperor Justinian entering through the imperial doors, to reenact liturgically the grand drama of the cosmos in the Holy Eucharist. For a thousand years this was the central church in the world. It was the Vatican before the Vatican mattered. It was the Gate of Heaven.Read more