A state-appointed chief imam at the Hagia Sophia, the greatest of all cathedrals of eastern Christendom that was insolently re-converted into a mosque last July, this week maintained that secularism should be removed from the Turkish constitution.
The state functionary, identified as Mehmet Boynukalın, said secularism was not included in the Turkish constitutions of 1921 and 1924.
Boynukalın, who sports the title of “professor” before his name, also maintained that the Turkish state’s religion was “… Islam. The Republic should return to its factory settings.”