{"id":155491,"date":"2025-11-27T10:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T10:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/155491\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T10:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T10:25:07","slug":"pope-leo-xiv-opens-first-foreign-trip-with-visit-to-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/155491\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo XIV opens first foreign trip with visit to Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANKARA — Pope Leo XIV arrived in Turkey on Thursday on his first foreign trip, fulfilling Pope Francis\u2019 plans to mark an important Orthodox anniversary and bring a message of peace to the region at a crucial time in efforts to end the war in Ukraine and ease Mideast tensions.<\/a><\/p>\n

Leo\u2019s charter plane landed at Ankara\u2019s international airport. <\/p>\n

Later, he had a meeting planned with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a speech to the country\u2019s diplomatic corps. He\u2019ll then move late Thursday on to Istanbul for three days of ecumenical and interfaith meetings that will be followed by the Lebanese leg of his trip.<\/p>\n

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP\u2019s earlier story follows below.<\/p>\n

VATICAN CITY (AP) \u2014 Pope Leo XIV<\/a> is heading to Turkey on Thursday on his first foreign trip, fulfilling the late Pope Francis\u2019 plans to mark an important Orthodox anniversary and bring a message of peace to the region at a crucial time for efforts to end the war in Ukraine and ease Mideast tensions.<\/a><\/p>\n

Leo is arriving first in Ankara, where he has a meeting planned with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan<\/a> and a speech to the country\u2019s diplomatic corps. He\u2019ll then move on to Istanbul for three days of ecumenical and interfaith meetings that will be followed by the Lebanese leg of his trip.<\/p>\n

Leo\u2019s visit comes as Turkey, a country of more than 85 million people of predominantly Sunni Muslims, has cast itself as a key intermediary<\/a> in peace negotiations for the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.<\/p>\n

Ankara has hosted rounds of low-level talks between Russia and Ukraine<\/a> and has offered to take part in the stabilization force in Gaza<\/a> to help uphold the fragile ceasefire, engagements Leo may applaud in his arrival speech. <\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s growing military weight, as NATO\u2019s largest army after the U.S., has been drawing Western leaders closer to Erdogan even as critics warn of his crackdown on the country\u2019s main opposition party.<\/p>\n

Though support for Palestinians and an end to the war in Ukraine is widespread in Turkey, for Turks who face an ongoing cost-of-living crisis<\/a>, owing to market turmoil induced by shake-ups in domestic politics, international politics is a secondary concern.<\/p>\n

That could explain why Leo’s visit has largely escaped the attention of many in Turkey, at least outside the country\u2019s small Christian community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know he was coming. He is welcome,\u201d said Sukran Celebi. \u201cIt would be good if he called for peace in the world, but I don\u2019t think it will change anything.”<\/p>\n

Some said they thought the visit by history\u2019s first American pope was about advancing the interests of the United States, or perhaps to press for the reopening of a Greek Orthodox religious seminary<\/a> that has become a focal point in the push for religious freedoms in Turkey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the pope is visiting, that means America wants something from Turkey,\u201d said Metin Erdem, a musical instruments shop owner in the touristic Galata district of Istanbul.<\/p>\n

The main impetus for Leo to travel to Turkey is to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea<\/a>, Christianity\u2019s first ecumenical council. <\/p>\n

Leo will pray with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world\u2019s Orthodox Christians, at the site of the 325 AD gathering, today\u2019s Iznik in northwestern Turkey, and sign a joint declaration in a visible sign of Christian unity.<\/p>\n

Eastern and Western churches were united until the Great Schism of 1054, a divide precipitated largely by disagreements over the primacy of the pope. <\/p>\n

While the visit is timed for the important Catholic-Orthodox anniversary, it will also allow Leo to reinforce the church\u2019s relations with Muslims. Leo is due to visit the Blue Mosque and preside over an interfaith meeting in Istanbul.<\/p>\n

Asg\u0131n Tunca, a Blue Mosque imam who will be receiving the pope, said the visit would help advance Christian-Muslim ties and dispel popular prejudices about Islam.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to reflect that image by showing the beauty of our religion through our hospitality \u2014 that is God\u2019s command,\u201d Tunca said.<\/p>\n

Since coming to power in 2002, Erdogan\u2019s government has enacted reforms to improve the rights of religious groups, including opening places of worship and returning property that were confiscated.<\/p>\n

Still, some Christian groups face legal and bureaucratic problems when trying to register churches, according to a U.S. State Department report on religious freedoms.<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church, which counts around 33,000 members in Turkey, has no formal legal recognition in the country \u201cand this is the source of many problems,\u201d said the Rev. Paolo Pugliese, superior of the Capuchin Catholic friars in Turkey.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the Catholic Church enjoys a rather notable importance because we have an international profile … and we have the pope holding our backs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

One of the more delicate moments of Leo’s visit will come Sunday, when he visits the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral in Istanbul. The cathedral has hosted all popes who have visited Turkey since Paul VI, with the exception of Francis who visited Turkey in 2014 when its patriarch was sick. <\/p>\n

Francis visited him at the hospital, and a few months later he greatly angered Turkey in 2015 when he declared that the slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks was \u201cthe first genocide of the 20th century.\u201d<\/a> Turkey, which has long denied a genocide took place, recalled its ambassador to the Holy See in protest.<\/p>\n

Leo has tended to be far more prudent than Francis in his public comments, and using such terms on Turkish soil would spark a diplomatic incident. But the Vatican is also navigating a difficult moment in its ties with Armenia, after its interfaith overtures to Azerbaijan have been criticized.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP\u2019s collaboration<\/a> with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANKARA — Pope Leo XIV arrived in Turkey on Thursday on his first foreign trip, fulfilling Pope Francis\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[94132,127,8737,8742,6557,122,42,9151,43,94131,7319,40,38,41,39,126],"class_list":{"0":"post-155491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-94132","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-catholic-church","11":"tag-christianity","12":"tag-diplomacy","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-islam","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-orthodox-church","18":"tag-religion","19":"tag-top-news","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topnews","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}