The Great Transition

In Islam, converting churches into mosques was not a standard rule or regular practice. Under Islamic law, if a city taken peacefully by treaty, its churches were legally protected and left untouched. Conversions generally only happened to a few major state cathedrals for political reasons in cities taken by war.

Throughout the Ottoman Empire, the rule was to let non-Muslim communities keep their religious freedom. Christians were recognized as protected citizens. As a result, thousands of churches across the empire—and several even in Constantinople itself—were kept open, repaired, and actively used for continuous Christian worship for hundreds of years.