Moscow Central Mosque to reopen on eve of Eid

ANKARA

A picture taken on September 15, 2015 shows people walking in front of Moscow' Sobornaya mosque, which will be officially opened on September 23. AFP PHOTO / YURI KADOBNOV

Moscow’s Central Mosque will reopen on the eve of Eid al-Adha, also called the Feast of Sacrifice, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan among the guests attending the event, Anadolu Agency has reported. 

The ceremony will also be attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders, the agency said. 

The mosque - also known as Moscow Cathedral Mosque and the Moscow Jum’ah Mosque - was demolished four years ago and has been rebuilt to house 10,000 worshippers.

The reopening on Sept. 23 will see a new complex 20 times larger than its predecessor at 19,000 square meters.

The Turkish Diyanet Foundation, an agency of Turkey’s religious affairs directorate, helped with the mosque’s interior design.

“In fact, Turkey’s president will participate in the opening ceremony of a mosque in Moscow and he will also have a meeting with the Russian president; they will have a bilateral discussion,” Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday, TASS reported.

“We also expect, if the president of the Palestinian Authority, [Mahmoud] Abbas, participates in the opening of the mosque, Putin will have separate talks with him also,” Peskov said, adding he was unaware if the Russian president would participate in the opening of the mosque.