The court's decision drew heavy criticism from the international community, as has the Turkish president's stated aim of ending the building's neutral usage.
The Greek culture minister, Lina Mendoni, released a statement condemning the decision, saying the court ruling "absolutely confirms that there is no independent justice" in Turkey, and that "the nationalism displayed by President Erdogan... takes his country back six centuries."
Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople has said that the building's prior status as a museum made it "the symbolic place of encounter, dialogue, solidarity and mutual understanding between Christianity and Islam."
In a June 30 homily, Bartholomew said that Hagia Sophia, a UNESCO World Heritage site, belongs "belongs not only to those who own it at the moment, but to all humanity."
Hagia Sophia was founded in 537 under the Emperor Justinian. For a time it was the largest building in the world and the largest Christian church. It served as the cathedral of the Patriarch of Constantinople before and after the Great Schism split Western and Eastern Christianity into the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
After the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453, the cathedral was converted into a mosque. Under the Ottomans, architects added minarets and buttresses to preserve the building, but the mosaics showing Christian imagery were whitewashed and covered.