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The
Organising Committee of the International Congress of Byzantine Studies
has announced that it has postponed this year’s congress and Istanbul
will no longer hold the event, Turkey’s Gazete Duvar reported.
“After
careful discussion with all colleagues involved with the organization
of the 2021 International Congress of Byzantine Studies in Istanbul,
that the Congress should be postponed until 2022, and that it will no
longer be held in Istanbul. A new venue will be announced as soon as it
can be confirmed, probably in September 2020,” the organising committee
said in a written statement.
The Congress said that “other
concerns associated with issues of heritage management” is why they have
decided to move the conference location from Constantinople.
Professor
of the International Byzantine Committee, John Haldon, said in an open
letter that “as President of the International Association of Byzantine
Studies and on behalf of all members of the Association as well as the
wider scholarly community, I write to condemn in the strongest terms the
recent decision of the Turkish Council of State and of the President of
the Turkish Republic, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to return the Ayasofya
[Hagia Sophia] Museum to its former status of a mosque.”
He said
that the decision to convert Hagia Sophia severely damages Turkey’s
supposed international standing and “damages Turkish scholarship and
research in both the humanities as well as the natural sciences in a way
that is likely to have direct consequences for Turkish participation in
international scientific enquiry for some years to come.”
“The
Turkish government and its leadership should take notice of the
international reaction to their short-sighted and ignorant gesture.
Their actions can only harm their own interests and those of the people
they aspire to represent,” the professor concluded.
