The Hagia Sophia ( Ο Αγια Σοφια ) (Greek pronunciation Ah-YEE-ah So-FEE-ah) The Hagia Sophia (aka Saint Sophia, Sancta Sophia, or Church of Divine Wisdom) was first built in the fourth century in Constantinople (now known under the Turkish name of Istanbul). That church was destroyed in a revolt, and the current building was erected on orders of Roman Emperor Justinian I in AD 532 and took five years and 10,000 workers to build. It was the center of the Orthodox Church for a thousand years and also the place of the coronation of the Byzantine Emperors. When Constantinople was captured in 1453 by the Muslim Turks they changed the Hagia Sophia into a mosque, and built several more (including the Sulemaniye and Blue Mosques ) based on the Hagia Sophia. (The four minarets [towers] and some buttressing were added to the building by the Turks.) Ayasofya , as it is now called, b...