architectural_style hagia sophia
___MASK95___ is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire , also known as the Later Roman or Eastern Roman Empire . ___MASK95___ was mostly influenced by Roman and Greek architecture and later Sassanian and Islamic influences to an extent . This terminology is used by modern historians to designate the medieval Roman Empire as it evolved as a distinct artistic and cultural entity centered on the new capital of Constantinople rather than the city of Rome and environs . The empire endured for more than a millennium , dramatically influencing Medieval architecture throughout Europe and the Near East , and becoming the primary progenitor of the Renaissance and Ottoman architectural traditions that followed its collapse . Aya Sofya also known as Hagia Sophia ( Greek :   , `` Holy Wisdom '' ) is a Byzantine - era church building in Nicaea ( now Iznik ) in Turkey . The church of Hagia Sophia was built by Justinian I in the middle of the city in the 6th century . It was modelled after the larger Hagia Sophia in Constantinople , and it was in this building that the Second Council of Nicaea met in 787 to end the first period of Byzantine Iconoclasm . It was converted to a mosque after the fall of the city to the Ottoman Turks in 1337 , and functioned as such until it was converted into a museum in 1935 . Since November 2011 , it again functions as a mosque . Hagia Sophia ( from the ), " Holy Wisdom "; or " Sancta Sapientia ") was a Greek Orthodox Christian patriarchal basilica ( church ), later an imperial mosque , and now a museum ( Ayasofya Müzesi ) in Istanbul , Turkey . From the date of its construction in 537 AD , and until 1453 , it served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral and seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople , except between 1204 and 1261 , when it was converted by the Fourth Crusaders to a Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire . The building was later converted into an Ottoman mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931 . It was then secularized and opened as a museum on 1 February 1935 . Famous in particular for its massive dome , it is considered the epitome of ___MASK95___ and is said to have " changed the history of architecture ". It remained the world ' s largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years , until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520 .