Pope visits Haghia Sophia in Istanbul

Pope Benedict XVI toured the 1,500-year-old Haghia Sophia on Thursday November 30, 2006 as part of his pilgrimage of landmarks of Christianity's ancient roots in Turkey.

The domed complex was for centuries a majestic center of Christianity before Constantinople — now Istanbul — was conquered by Muslim armies in 1453.

The site was a mosque until 1935, when it was converted to a museum under the secular reformers who founded modern Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.

Benedict also is expected to make a brief tour of the famous Blue Mosque in the second papal visit to a Muslim place of worship after Pope John Paul II's historic stop in a mosque in Syria in 2001