"There, [at the EU meeting] Greece will ask the European Union to draw up a list of the stringiest possible measures against Turkey in case it violates the sovereign rights of Greece", Dendias said in the interview.

The top diplomat went on to say that Greece's mediation in the debate was not enough and that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the UN must show initiative.

"The danger is that we reflect on the issue of Hagia Sophia from the angle of the Greek-Turkish relationship, while it is a global one. It is the issue of neglecting the rules and disrespecting the world community", Dendias stated.

The minister noted that Ankara's decision on Hagia Sophia was another provocative action against Greece and other countries in the region, and the fact that Turkey did not show any spirit of cooperation to comply with international law should not be ignored.

"My thoughts go to Istanbul. I'm thinking about Hagia Sophia. I am very distressed," the pontiff said, in the Vatican's first reaction to the decision taken by the Turkish authorities. The brief remark made during a Sunday prayer marking the International Day of the Sea saw the Pope add his voice to the growing chorus from other Christian churches worldwide that have expressed concern over the move.

Earlier, the World Council of Churches, a Geneva-based organization comprising numerous Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican institutions, expressed "grief and dismay" over the development, adding that Hagia Sophia had, until now, been "a place of openness, encounter and inspiration for people from all nations."

"We made a decision to change the status of the Hagia Sophia, based on the opinion of our people and not those who say things about us", Erdogan stated during an appearance on Turkey's NTV broadcaster.

During his television appearance, Erdogan added that the country will continue to "take the right path, in order to build a mighty and strong Turkey".

Speaking to the Turkish news agency Anadolu, he stressed that "opening up Hagia Sophia to worship doesn't keep local or foreign tourists from visiting the site", and that Turkey would preserve the unique Christian icons and mosaic images of Jesus Christ in the building.

Kalin, however, did not elaborate on the matter, further, fuelling concerns about the future of these Christian shrines following the Turkish president's decree earlier on Friday to convert the Hagia Sophia into a mosque.

This was preceded by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk from the Russian Orthodox Church warning last week that the temple's "miraculously spared" mosaics will most likely be damaged if Ankara makes the conversion decision.

In an interview with Russia's Rossiya 24 news outlet, he said that he would like to know about "the fate of these mosaics" and "how this building will function if it is turned into a mosque again".

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who said that Athens "categorically condemns Turkey's decision to convert Hagia Sophia to a mosque" and that "this decision, taken 85 years after Hagia Sophia was declared a museum, is an affront to its ecumenical character".

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In 2014, Fair was profiled in the Washington Post, under the headline "A virus hunter faces the big one: Ebola." It began: "Joseph Fair hunts viruses. That's his thing. The 37-year-old American loves chasing dangerous pathogens, studying them in secure labs or searching for them in jungles where the microbes lurk." The whole story details Dr. Fair's work with Ebola - no mention of the supposed near-death experience from 2006, however.

And now we know Dr. Fair never had coronavirus, despite nearly a dozen appearances on NBC and MSNBC where he talked about having it or recovering from it. In the end, NBC's viewers were left with two very alarming - and false - impressions. First, that an expert virologist can take every precaution but can still catch COVID-19 through his eyes. False. Second, that tests can be so untrustworthy that you can have multiple negative tests and still have coronavirus. Craig Melvin described them as "false negative tests" in that initial report on May 14. Hoda Kotb said, "every time it came back negative, but clearly you have it." False. Anti-science. And truly damaging.

In articles and TV segments, millions of NBC readers and viewers are today left with the impression that Dr. Joseph Fair, a 42-year-old "virus hunter" (with the handle @CureFinder on Twitter) came down with a case of COVID-19 through his eyes that was so severe he was hospitalized in ICU for several days and that at least five "false negative" tests couldn't trace it. This pandemic is scary enough without this false storyline introduced into the news picture.

So what really happened? We don't know. I asked several medical experts, and it's unclear what the story really is. In one later MSNBC appearance, Fair discussed having a "panic attack" right before going to the hospital. But we don't know. Fair did not respond to repeated requests for comment. NBC has declined to comment on the record throughout the past month.

Fair has been regularly appearing on NBC and MSNBC, but has not been on the air since his tweet revealing the antibody test results on Tuesday. Shortly after I began making inquiries related to this story, Fair appeared on the Today show June 17 and was described as having recovered from a "possible covid-19 related illness." In that appearance, he said he would "absolutely" keep viewers posted on the results of the antibody test.

So far, there have been no on-air corrections. Or online -this NBC News story is still uncorrected, for example. The Today show website wrote a brief story, where they now describe what he had as a "severe illness."