Hagia Sophia

Constantinople was the seat of Eastern Orthodox before the rise of the Ottoman Turks. The Hagia Sophia was built by Eastern Orthodox and was converted to a Mosque. Somewhere there is a group of Orthodox plotting. Not just Orthodox, an Islamic scholar, Sheikh Imran Nazar Hosein, teaches that Islam and Russia need to ally and the Hagia Sophia be returned to Russian Orthodox. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ApMnvrkyAI&t=7s starts at 0:30

@opphunter88@gleasonator.com That is interesting. I know that Orthodox is "nationalistic" but I'm not that familiar with internal rivalries. I've listened to quite a bit of Imran Hosein and he only talks about Russia. That's probably due to Russia's military prowess. Hosein is an "end-time" eschatologist so his presentations are contextualized with prophecy and God's will for the end of time, etc.

It's complicated and goes back a long way, and there are multiple layers to it.

One layer is that the Moscow patriarchate is loyal to the Russian state, and has been since the Soviet Union, whereas the Greek patriarchate, though it's located in Turkey, actually exercises most of its power in the United States, and has a longstanding relationship with American intelligence. So that rivalry has been in place since before the Cold War.

It goes back older than that though. Moscow has, at times, been considered the 3rd Rome, Rome being the greatest seat of power in the Church. Constantinople, the home of the Greek patriarchate, is the 2nd Rome, and tends not to be a fan of this designation for obvious reasons.