By reversing one of Ataturk's most symbolic steps, which underlined the former leader's commitment to a secular republic, Erdogan has capped his own project to restore Islam in public life, said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"Hagia Sophia is the crowning moment of Erdogan's religious revolution which has been unfolding in Turkey for over a decade," he said, pointing to greater emphasis on religion in education and across government.
Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy head of the foreign affairs committee in the Russian upper house of parliament, called the action "a mistake".
"Turning it into a mosque will not do anything for the Muslim world. It does not bring nations together, but on the contrary brings them into collision," he said.
The Russian Orthodox Church said it regretted that the court did not take its concerns into account and said the decision could lead to even greater divisions.
Previously, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual head of some 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide and based in Istanbul, said converting it into a mosque would disappoint Christians and would "fracture" East and West.
Giulio Meotti of Gate Stone Institute, the New York-based anti-Muslim think tank, By turning Hagia Sophia into a mosque, Erdogan has been able to embarrass Washington, mock Brussels and defy Moscow. For Erdogan, Hagia Sophia is the prime symbol of Christianity's subjugation to Islam.
For 916 years, Hagia Sophia had been the "world's largest basilica" and the main seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church where, for centuries, emperors were crowned.
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