Ottoman Turks’ Conquest of Constantinople (AD 1453)

Led by twenty-one-year-old military commander Mehmed II, Muslim Turks conquered Constantinople on May 29, 1453, after a seven-week siege. This date marked the end of the Byzantine empire that had lasted for over 1,000 years. After the con- quest, Sultan Mehmed II moved the Ottoman capital from the city of Edirne to Constantinople.

The Church of the Holy Peace (Hagia Sophia) and the Church of the Holy Apostles were turned into imperial mosques. With the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, my teaching inside the early church of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) comes to an end. With the fall of the Ottoman empire following World War I, the modern Republic of Turkey was birthed on October 29, 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, who became known as Atatürk, the father of the Turks.