Hagia Sophia (Sancta Sophia or Sancta Sapientia) is a former Orthodox patriarcal basilica, later a mosque,now a museum. The current building was originally constructed as a church between 532 and 537 CE on the orders of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, and was in fact the third Church of the Holy Wisdom to occupy the site. (The previous two had both been destroyed by riots.) In 1935, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, transformed the building into a museum.