I was watching Rise of Empires: Ottoman on Netflix and the fifth episode on prophecy ended with an image of the Hagia Sophia being surrounded by a light of divine origin (I believe they said it was Mother Mary leaving the city). I tried doing some research to understand what are some possible natural explanations but with no luck. I found that there had been lightning,thunderstorms, and fog that day. Could the light phenomena been caused by the material used for the dome of the church? Any information would be greatly appreciated!
We've been getting a lot of questions about this lately! Here's an answer I wrote the other day about the light (and the eclipse).
Roger Crowley wrote an amazing book about this siege titled 1453. In it, he addressed this very topic and said:
"...the most likely explanation for these terrifying phenomena lay faraway in the Pacific Ocean and rivaled even the most lurid vision of Armageddon. Sometime around the start of 1453 the volcanic island of Kuwae, 1,200 miles east of Australia, literally blew itself up. It was the Krakatoa of the Middle Ages, an event that dimmed the world's weather. Volcanic dust was propelled across the earth on global winds, lowering temperatures and blighting harvests from China to Sweden. South of the Yangtze River, an area with a climate as mild as Florida, it snowed continuously for dirty days. Contemporary tree-ring records from England show years of stunted growth. The sulfur-rich particles from Kuwae could well have been responsible for the unseasonably cool and unstable mixture of rain, hail, fog, and snow that blighted the city throughout the spring. Suspended in the atmosphere they would also have created lurid sunsets and strange optical effects. It could have been volcanic particles, alone or in conjunction with the effect of St. Elmo's fire - the glow from the discharges of atmospheric electricity - that bathed the copper dome of the cathedral in ominous ribbons of fire on May 26, and conjured for the defenders these visions of oblivion. (Lurid light effects after the Krakatoa eruption in 1883 similarly alarmed people in New York, but living in more scientific age, they tended to assume huge fires were raging and sent for the fire brigade.)"
I haven't heard of that story of a prophecy of the Virgin Mary leaving the city, but the association of the (interior of) Hagia Sophia--I don't know if you're referring to a reported vision on the exterior of the church--with the phenomenon of divine light was actually built into its design in the 6th century. The space was constructed to maximize the multi-sensory effect of reflective natural light from the dome off of gold and marble surfaces--which could be observed to mimic wet surfaces or water ripples on the floor--and acoustics from chanting, which evoked the presence of God. Search titles by Bissera V. Pentcheva, who did extensive studies on this in 2010.