Chora

Here, amid seven mountain ranges, countless peaks, and thousands of trees, the authentic charm of the Greek countryside endures. While Ano Chora offers tourist amenities, the character of this secluded region, with its quaint villages and sparse population, remains unspoiled.

Former US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said he hopes that Turkey will revise its decision to convert the Chora church from a museum into a mosque.

Giorgos Koumoutsakos, the permanent representative of Greece to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, has lodged a demarche to UNESCO in Paris, after the decision by Turkish authorities to convert the Monastery of Chora in Istanbul into a mosque. 

Earlier this week Turkey formally opened the monastery of Chora, a former Byzantine church and UNESCO World Heritage Site in Istanbul, as a mosque. The move follows the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque in 2020, and has drawn international criticism.

The US Department of State is aware of Turkey's conversion of another historical Byzantine church into a mosque, and urges the government to "respect" the "diverse histories" of heritage sites that have hosted different religious communities.

The Orthodox Archdiocese of America strongly condemned the conversion of the Monastery of Chora in Istanbul into a mosque and underlined that the US government "should be concerned about these developments."

Education, Religious Affairs and Sports Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis has said he raised the conversion of a former Byzantine church in Istanbul, the Church of St. Saviour in Chora, into a mosque during his first official visit to the Vatican in Rome.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan formally opened a former Byzantine church in Istanbul as a mosque on Monday, four years after his government had designated it a Muslim house of prayer, despite criticism from neighboring Greece.

In 2020 Turkey's government changed the status of Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque. Now, Ankara is looking to repeat this with another important UNESCO World Heritage site, Chora Church.