First American pope urges Catholic Church in Turkiye to serve the most vulnerable, including migrants and refugees.
By Al Jazeera Staff and News Agencies
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Pope Leo XIV has condemned violence and wars waged in the name of religion at a landmark event with Christian leaders from across the Middle East, urging them during his first overseas trip as leader of the Catholic Church to overcome centuries of thorny divisions.
The first American pope has chosen the Muslim-majority Turkiye as his first overseas destination, to be followed by Lebanon in the coming days, as he seeks to be a bridge-builder and a messenger of peace amid raging global conflicts.
“Today, the whole of humanity, afflicted by violence and conflict, is crying out for reconciliation,” Leo said on Friday at a ceremony in the Turkish town of Iznik, once known as Nicaea, where early churchmen created the Nicene Creed still used by most Christians today.
“We must strongly reject the use of religion for justifying war, violence, or any form of fundamentalism or fanaticism,” he said. “The paths to follow are those of fraternal encounter, dialogue and cooperation.”
Friday’s ceremony, at which the Church leaders prayed in English, Greek and Arabic and lit candles near the underwater ruins of a fourth-century basilica, is the main reason for Leo’s four-day visit to predominantly Muslim Turkiye.
Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, reporting from Iznik, said the pope made his first visit to Turkiye because he believes the country is “inextricably” linked to the origins of Christianity.
“Both the pope and the patriarch are keen to unite the Christian divide, and encounters like this are valuable in doing so,” he said.
Hull stressed that the pope’s visit focuses on bridge-building between religions amid multiple ongoing conflicts in the world.
“He will take that message to Lebanon in a couple of days, urging peace there,” he concluded.
The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics began his day on Friday by joining a prayer service at Istanbul’s Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, before heading to Iznik.
In Istanbul, police shut down a main artery of the country’s largest city to allow Leo’s entourage to pass.
Pilgrims packed into Holy Spirit church while dozens more waited excitedly in the courtyard outside in the hope of getting a glimpse of the pontiff, getting up before dawn to be in the front line.
Catherine Bermudez, a Filipino migrant worker in Istanbul, told Al Jazeera that she was “very excited” to be chosen as one of the parishioners to greet the pope inside the church.
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 Turkiye is a small community, yet fruitful,” he said in his address, urging them to give “special attention” to helping migrants and refugees staying in Turkiye who number nearly three million, most of them Syrians.
The 70-year-old pontiff headed 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 despite the separation of the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Leo was flown by helicopter to Iznik, where he was invited by the Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, to join an ecumenical prayer service by the ruins of a fourth-century basilica.
Reports said Turkish police removed Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot and seriously wounded Pope John Paul II in Rome in 1981, from Iznik on Thursday.
Agca – who was released from prison in 2010 – said he had hoped to meet the pope, telling reporters, “I hope we can sit down and talk in Iznik, or in Istanbul, for two or three minutes.”
Pope Leo is the fifth pontiff to visit Turkiye, after Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II in 1979, Benedict XVI in 2006 and Francis in 2014.
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