Pope Leo XIV wraps up a four-day journey to Turkey Sunday after a heat welcome by its tiny Christian neighborhood, earlier than heading to Lebanon with a message of peace for the crisis-mired nation.
On his first abroad journey since being elected chief of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, Leo met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier than travelling to Iznik for a celebration marking 1,700 years because the First Council of Nicaea, one of many early Church’s most vital gatherings.
On Saturday, the American pope hosted hundreds of worshippers who battled the rain to attend a public mass in Istanbul, with many travelling from throughout Turkey to hitch the multilingual service, which left many moved by its stunning and haunting choral interludes.
On his ultimate morning, Leo was anticipated to attend a prayer service on the Armenian cathedral then lead a divine liturgy — the Orthodox equal of mass — on the Patriarchal Church of St. George earlier than a ultimate blessing.
He may have lunch with Patriarch Bartholomew I, the chief of the world’s Orthodox Christians, a day after they signed a joint declaration wherein they pledged to take “new and brave steps on the trail in the direction of unity”.
– Subsequent cease Lebanon –
Regardless of doctrinal variations that led to the Nice Schism of 1054, leading to a break up between the Roman Catholic Church within the West and the Jap Orthodox Church, the 2 sides preserve dialogue and maintain joint celebrations.
Additionally they agreed to proceed their efforts to ascertain a typical date for Easter, which is at the moment celebrated by Catholics and Orthodox Christians on totally different days.
The pope’s journey comes because the Orthodox world seems extra fragmented than ever, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accelerating the break up between the Moscow and Constantinople patriarchates.
Pope Leo is the fifth pontiff to go to Turkey, after Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II in 1979, Benedict XVI in 2006 and Francis in 2014.
He’s anticipated to go away Istanbul 1145 GMT and fly to Beirut for a go to lasting till Tuesday.
The six-day two-nation journey is the primary main worldwide check for the primary pope from america, who was elected head of the Catholic Church in Could and whose understated fashion contrasts with that of his charismatic and impulsive predecessor, Francis.
Though Leo’s go to drew little consideration in Turkey, a Muslim-majority nation of 86 million whose Christian neighborhood numbers solely round 100,000, it’s eagerly awaited in Lebanon, a religiously numerous nation of 5.8 million inhabitants.
Since 2019 Lebanon has been ravaged by crises, together with an financial collapse, a devastating port blast in Beirut in 2020 and the current warfare with Israel.