Is the museum in God, or God in the museum? Keep Hagia Sophia an artwork above all

Comment published on New York Times blog, in response to Editorial, “The Hagia Sophia was a cathedral, a mosque, and a museum. It’s converting again,” July 22, 2020”

The underlying fact of convertibility (in either direction) between artworks and architectural sites that are both religious and historical reflects an important question. It is not (now) Christianity vs. Islam, but religious vs. 'secular', and the question is how this is decided. When is a cultural artifact with religious meanings that is also an historical object to be appreciated, understand, and studied?

In the middle ages, religion and learning were identified. Now, a painting on a religious subject in a museum still has religious meaning, but is not part of a ritual practice, be it religious, governmental. or anything else. The convertibility is unidirectional: you can pray (inconspicuously) in an art museum, but you cannot easily just ponder a religious painting in a church or mosque while attending the service.

This supports a claim about secularization made in philosophy by Hegel. He claimed that in the modern world religion is supplanted by art and philosophy, because they are more comprehensive. They render its meanings not so much different as clearer, in a culture of interpretation and reason.

Ancient Judaism had replaced sacrifice with prayer; in modernity worship is replaced by thought, and its objects are not restricted to the priorly-determined holy.

There is no going back. Let services be held, but let it be an artwork, for all. This alone makes its 'religious' meanings, like all truth, universal, available to thought and understanding.