“A Turkish official says restoration workers have uncovered the never-before-seen mosaic face of an angel at Istanbul’s Haghia Sophia – a former Byzantine cathedral.”
This was a headline on the Fox News website. This really disturbed me, as it should all Orthodox Christians. “Never before seen,” what about those countless Christians who worshipped in the Church of the Holy Wisdom from the time of Justinian, until the fall of Constantinople. Don’t they count? This is revisionist history at it finest! The angel was not seen since the Ottomans plastered them over to hide the Truth. So, those Orthodox Christians who prayed in the Cathedral, who placed the mosaic are not to be heard. How sad! Where are the voices telling the world how false these assertions are? Who speaks for the Church in captivity, forced to keep it mouth shut to endure? Where is St. Maximos, St. Mark of Ephesus, the voice of the Church? We are a Church in captivity, a Church muzzled for the sake of political expediency. But, where are the voices in the West? Cannot we speak with a loud voice? The sad thing is the only time we scream with our voices is to criticise the Church and her leaders. The Patriarch did this, the Archbishop didn’t do this, our Metropolitan said the wrong thing. How very sad. Why can’t we speak with a loud voice to decry injustice and to say, this is not a dead Church. It was, is and always will be, at its heart a Church built to the Glory of God. That angel’s image should reminds us of the Seraphim that surrounds the throne God. “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of Your Glory!”