Pope Leo XIV concludes his four-day visit to Turkey on Sunday after receiving a warm welcome from the tiny Christian population before leaving for his next stop, Lebanon, in the Middle East.
This was Pope Leo’s first trip since being elected as the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholic Christians. He met and discussed issues with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before travelling to Iznik for a celebration marking 1,700 years since the First Council of Nicaea, one of the early Church's most important gatherings.
Thousands braved cold and rainy weather on Saturday to get a glimpse of the newly elected American Pope. He also met with the Orthodox Christian leaders in Turkiye. Despite vast differences in the two Christian schools of thought, the Roman Catholic Church in the West and the Eastern Orthodox Church, the worshippers maintained peace and held joint celebrations.
Both sides agreed to continue their efforts to establish a common date for Easter, which is otherwise celebrated on two different days. The pope’s trip is supposed to lower the ongoing tensions between Orthodox Russia and Turkiye’s Catholic population over Ukraine. Pope Leo is only the fifth pontiff to visit Turkey, after Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II in 1979, Benedict XVI in 2006 and Francis in 2014.
He is expected to be in Lebanon on Sunday afternoon after leaving Turkiye at 1145 GMT. Although his visit to Ankara gained little traction, since Turkiye has an overwhelmingly Muslim population of 86 million, with 100,000 minority Christians. But he is eagerly awaited in Lebanon, which has a rich and diverse mix of a population of 5.8 million inhabitants.
Also Read: Pope Leo XIV urges all sides to talk peace
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