Panagia Balinou: From abandonment to new life and the world premieretranslated

A small church in Istanbul is preparing to open a unique window in time. At Panagia Balino, in the coming weeks, visitors from all over the world will be able, with free access, to listen to Byzantine psalms as they echoed in Hagia Sophia in the days of Justinian, almost 1,500 years ago.

It is a project that combines science, technology, artificial intelligence, music and cultural heritage, transforming a historical church of the city into a place of experiential contact with the Byzantine tradition.

Behind the initiative is Byron Nikolaidis, founder and CEO of the PeopleCert group, who together with scientists from Stanford and experts worked for more than two years to implement the project. The route was not simple. As Mr. Nikolaidis has mentioned, it took successive tests, design changes, technical adjustments and continuous improvements until the reproduction of the special acoustics of Hagia Sophia was achieved.

Today, more than 80 Byzantine psalms have already been completed, while the final goal is to create a digital archive of 150 psalms. Before even…