{"id":155954,"date":"2025-11-27T16:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T16:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/155954\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T16:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T16:36:08","slug":"pope-leo-xiv-urges-peace-in-ankara-on-first-foreign-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/155954\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo XIV urges peace in Ankara on first foreign trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

By&nbspSertac Aktan<\/a>&nbspwith&nbspAP<\/p>\n

\n Published on
\n 27\/11\/2025 – 17:21 GMT+1\n <\/p>\n

Pope Leo XIV encouraged Turkey to be a source of stability and dialogue in a world riven by conflict, as he opened his first foreign papal trip in Ankara on Thursday.<\/p>\n

At his arrival in Ankara, the American pope was welcomed on the tarmac by a military guard of honour and at the presidential palace by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. <\/p>\n

Speaking to Erdogan and the country\u2019s diplomatic corps at a library in the palace complex, Leo praised Turkey\u2019s historic role as a bridge between East and West, religions and cultures.<\/p>\n

\u201cMay Turkey be a source of stability and rapprochement between peoples, in service of a just and lasting peace,\u201d he said, speaking in front of a giant globe. \u201cToday, more than ever, we need people who will promote dialogue and practice it with firm will and patient resolve.\u201d <\/p>\n

“The future of humanity is at stake”<\/p>\n

Ankara has hosted unsuccessful talks between Russia and Ukraine, and has also offered to take part in the stabilisation force in Gaza to help oversee a fragile ceasefire.<\/p>\n

The Pope didn\u2019t cite the conflicts specifically, but he quoted his predecessor, Pope Francis, lamenting that the wars ravaging the world today amount to a \u201cthird world war fought piecemeal\u201d, with resources spent on armaments rather than on fighting hunger and poverty and protecting creation. <\/p>\n

After two world wars, “we are now experiencing a phase marked by a heightened level of conflict on the global level,\u201d he said. \u201cWe must not give in to this. The future of humanity is at stake.\u201d <\/p>\n

Leo is the fifth Pope to visit Turkey after Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XIV and Pope Francis. His trip comes at a particularly fraught period in the Middle East, with a delicate cease-fire in Gaza and recent Israeli strikes in both Beirut and southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n

However, his main reason for travelling to Turkey is to commemorate an important date in Orthodox-Catholic relations: the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, Christianity\u2019s first ecumenical council. In A.D. 325, that council hashed out the first version of the Nicene Creed, a statement of faith that millions of Christians still recite each Sunday.<\/p>\n

A papal visit to celebrate the anniversary was promised by Pope Francis, who did not live to mark the date himself.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the Pope will join Istanbul-based Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew to commemorate the anniversary, which took place in Iznik, some 90 kilometres southeast of Istanbul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By&nbspSertac Aktan&nbspwith&nbspAP Published on 27\/11\/2025 – 17:21 GMT+1 Pope Leo XIV encouraged Turkey to be a source of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[94310,42,43,14655,40,38,41,39,4309],"class_list":{"0":"post-155954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-ecumenical-patriarchate","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pope-leo-xiv","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-turkiye-turkey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155954","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=155954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}