Athens, 23 February 2022

President of Parliament at presentation of volume "Agia Sophia - The temples of God's Wisdom around the world"

"Hagia Sophia ,although suffering the arbitrariness of its conversion into a mosque for two years now, has proven resilient and irrepressible. " This was emphasized by the President of the Hellenic Parliament Constantine Tassoulas, in the framework of the first presentation of the volume "Hagia Sophia: the temples of God's Wisdom around the world." The presentation took place today at the Hellenic Cosmos Cultural Center, at the initiative of Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy (IAO), following a unanimous decision of its International Secretariat in September 2020, in response to the Turkish arbitrary and unlawful decision to convert the Hagia Sophia of Istanbul and the Monastery of Chora into mosques.

The President of the Hellenic Parliament noted that this initiative constitutes "one of the responses to the brutality of the Hagia Sophia conversion into a mosque" which, as he said, "was a blow that failed to bend this immortal symbol of Christianity and Hellenism."

Mr Tassoulas, referring to Interparliamentary Assembly’s of Orthodoxy main objective, namely pursuing world peace, made special reference to the historical correspondence between Einstein and Freud, emphasizing culture as the only way for man to escape from psychoses and manias of destruction, hatred and power.

The President of the IAO General Assembly Sergei Gavrilov, the President of the Hellenic Parliament Constantine Tassoulas, the Deputy Minister for Education and Religion Zetta Makri, the Archbishop of Athens and All of Greece Ieronymos, were keynote speakers at the presentation, followed by the Athens University Dean, Prof. Athanasios Dimopoulos, the Scientific Editor of the volume, Prof. Ioanna Stoufi-Poulimenou from the Athens University Department of Theology and the IAO Secretary General, MP Dr Maximos Charakopoulos. Mrs Maria Antoniadou, President of the Journalists’ Union of Athens Daily Newspapers was in charge of coordinating the presentation.

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