Pope Leo XIV was yesterday to join the leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians to celebrate 1,700 years since one of the early Church’s most important gatherings, on the second day of his visit to Turkey.
The American pope on Thursday began his four-day visit in Ankara, where he urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to embrace Turkey’s role as a source of “stability and rapprochement between peoples” in a world gripped by conflict.
“This land is inextricably linked to the origins of Christianity, and today it beckons the children of Abraham and all humanity to a fraternity that recognizes and appreciates differences,” he said, before flying to Istanbul where he would stay until tomorrow when he travels on to Lebanon.
Photo: EPA
The 70-year-old pontiff spent yesterday morning with Catholic leaders before going to Iznik to celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, a gathering of bishops who drew up a foundational statement of faith still central to Christianity today.
The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics joined a prayer service yesterday at Istanbul’s Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, with police shutting down a main artery of Turkey’s largest city to allow his entourage to pass. While hundreds of pilgrims were packed into the church, dozens more waited excitedly in the courtyard outside in the hope of getting a glimpse of the pontiff, many of whom got up before dawn to be in the front line.
“It’s a blessing for us, it’s so important that the first visit of the pope is to our country,” 35-year-old Turkish Catholic Ali Gunuru said. “The world needs peace, we have serious problems, especially in our area, in our country: the foreigners, refugees… I pray for them and I believe the pope will have the power to help them and that he will do everything.”
Visibly moved by his reception at the church, Leo could be seen smiling and looking much more at ease than on Thursday, encouraging his flock not to be discouraged, saying: “The logic of littleness is the Church’s true strength.”
“The Church in Turkey is a small community, yet fruitful,” he said in his address, urging them to give “special attention” to helping migrants and refugees staying in Turkey who number nearly 3 million, most of them Syrians.
“The significant presence of migrants and refugees in this country presents the Church with the challenge of welcoming and serving some of the most vulnerable,” he said.
The Holy See also acknowledges Turkey’s efforts in hosting refugees and migrants.
In the early afternoon, Leo was to be flown by helicopter to Iznik, where he has been invited by the Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, to join an ecumenical prayer service. The prayer was to take place by the ruins of a fourth-century basilica built on the site where the First Council took place.
“When the world is troubled and divided by conflict and antagonism, our meeting with Pope Leo XIV is especially significant,” Patriarch Bartholomew said. “It reminds our faithful that we are more powerful and more credible when we are united in our witness and response to the challenges of the contemporary world.”
Pope Leo is the fifth pontiff to visit Turkey, after Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II in 1979, Benedict XVI in 2006 and Francis in 2014.
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