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The WorshipConcord icon is a detail from a photograph taken at the Hagia Sophia basilica in Istanbul, Turkey. Before the beginning of Islam, Istanbul was named Constantinople, and was the capital of Byzantium, or the Holy Roman Empire in the East. The first church, erected in 360 by the Emperor Constantius, was burned in 404 during riots that ensued following the exile of John Chrysostom. The icon is an image of a cross carved on the capital of a column that belonged to the art and architecture of the second church (date 415) built on the same site during the reign of Theodosius II. There are literally dozens of different cross images in the Hagia Sophia, in mosaics, in carved stone reliefs, on ceilings, walls, columns, doors, and panels. The capital from which the WorshipConcord icon is made now rests in the courtyard of the Hagia Sophia. WorshipConcord has adopted this image as its identifying icon because the cross is at the center of Lutheran theology and Lutheran worship.
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