December Thoughts, Then and Now, by Francis X. Maier
What Tucker Carlson Doesn’t Get About “Marriage” That the Left Does, by Jessica Kramer
December 29, 2022
Normal People Are Crying Out for a Leader, by Neil Patel
December 29, 2022
*Image: Remains of the Byzantine Deësis in the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi). Our Lady and John the Baptist petition Christ to have mercy on mankind [Photo: Smarthistory via byzantologist/flickr]
By Francis X. Maier, The Catholic Thing, Dec. 29, 2022
Francis X. Maier is a senior fellow in Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
History is a great teacher. According to oral tradition, when Emperor Justinian walked into the completed Church of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) on December 27, A.D. 537, he stared in silence for a long time at the immense beauty of the basilica he had commissioned before finally whispering, “Solomon, I have surpassed you.”
He was probably right. Hagia Sophia was the artistic triumph of a millennium. For 916 years, it permeated the daily life of the imperial city of Constantinople. …
