[...] Byzantine writers never tire of admiring and describing this great achievement of Christian art, and a multitude of prophecies and folk tales about the construction and fate of the great temple circulated in the oral tradition of the peoples of Christian East. The admiration of numerous travelers, both Western and Eastern, English, Italian, Russian, Arab, Jewish, and others, was similar, and their descriptions and references to the monument itself and to the ceremonies, religious and political, that they happened to witness in it are of great interest: liturgies, processions, doxologies, triumphs, coronations, and funerals of emperors and patriarchs. In recent times, no other monument has attracted more interest from scholars of Christian art, architecture, sculpture, painting, and decoration than Hagia Sophia, especially since 1934, when, by decision of the Turkish government, Hagia Sophia was recognized as a museum of Byzantine art. Coordinated scientific research by mainly American archaeologists and scholars has revealed a significant part of the artistic treasures of the renowned temple, and the international scientific interest in the study of its elements remains undiminished. [...]