A married Russian couple face possible expulsion from Turkey after being detained for reading verses from the Bible inside Istanbul's Hagia Sophia.
Viktoria Sergeyevna Filonova, 35, and Igor Andreyevich Filonov were escorted from the historic site on Monday and are under investigation for allegedly stirring up hatred or hostility, according to a report in The Moscow Times.
The couple are being investigated under Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code.
Russia's Consulate General in Istanbul has been in contact with a lawyer representing the couple.
It remains unclear whether the pair were reading quietly or aloud. However, Filonova told police she did not realise Bible reading was prohibited "in the museum section".
Hagia Sophia has a long and complex history. Originally built as a cathedral under the Byzantine Empire in the sixth century, it was converted into a mosque after Constantinople fell to Ottoman forces in 1453.
In 1934, it was turned into a museum as part of Turkey's secularisation programme under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and later became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Its status changed again in 2020 when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan restored it as a functioning mosque, a move the Russian Orthodox Church denounced at the time as endangering Christian civilisation more broadly.
Despite the reconversion, the building's upper gallery continues to operate as a museum space open to visitors. The Bible reading is understood to have taken place there, where security staff reportedly approached Igor while he was holding a Bible.