Russians Detained for Reading Bible at Hagia Sophia Mosque Return Home

Two Russian citizens, Victoria Filonova (35) and Igor Filonov (32), who were detained at Istanbul's Hagia Sophia mosque for reading a Bible, have returned to Russia. According to TASS, citing the Russian Consulate General in Istanbul, the couple departed on a scheduled flight at 7:50 p.m. local time on July 17 and arrived in Moscow.

The Filonovs had traveled from Moscow to Turkey for a vacation. On July 14, they visited Hagia Sophia, where Igor took out a Bible he had brought and began reading it. They were quickly surrounded by security, escorted out of the mosque, and taken to a police station in Istanbul's Fatih district. Later, they were transferred to a detention center for foreigners awaiting deportation. They were charged with inciting hatred, an offense that carries a prison sentence of six months to one year, and also face possible deportation.

TASS sources said the detention occurred after police received a report that the couple was reading the Bible aloud in the visitors' area. Under Turkish law, conducting Christian religious rites or conspicuously reading non-Muslim religious literature inside an active mosque is considered a violation of public order.

Hagia Sophia was built on the orders of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I and consecrated in 537. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, it was converted into a mosque. It became a museum in the 1930s, but in July 2020, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a decree restoring its status as a mosque.