The newly elected Pope Leo XIV, head of state of the Vatican and religious leader of the Catholic Church, will visit Turkey at the end of May to travel to the Turkish town of İznik, formerly Nicaea, where the first ecumenical council of Christianity was held 1,700 years ago.
This was reported by the Turkish press, which claims that the Pope announced that ‘we are preparing’ for the trip to İznik, which the late Pope Francis was going to visit in May. In this small Turkish town on the shores of Lake İznik, ancient Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman capital, the first great council of Christianity was held in 325 AD, convened by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, which brought together Christian bishops and scholars from all over the known world to lay the foundations of the ‘universal’ doctrine (in Greek katholou, from which the word ‘Catholic’ derives) of the Church. It was in İznik that the so-called Nicene Creed was established, which laid down the pillars of Christian dogma such as the concept of the Trinity and the nature of Jesus in relation to the Father.
Following the death of Pope Francis on 21 April, after the new Pope was elected on 8 May at the Conclave held in Rome, one of the first decisions taken by Leo XIV was to hold a meeting with the approximately 4,000 journalists who had come to the Vatican to cover the news of the papal election.
During the event, according to press reports, one of the journalists reminded the new Pope that Francis had expressed his desire to visit Turkey on the occasion of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which Francis had described as ‘a turning point in the journey of the Church and of all humanity.’ However, his health and subsequent death prevented him from fulfilling his wish. When asked then whether Leo XIV was aware of this and would carry out the visit planned by his predecessor, the new Pontiff reportedly replied: ‘I know, we are preparing for it.’
The Pope’s visit to Turkey would therefore be eminently religious in nature, and according to some sources, Leo XIV is expected to meet with members of the Catholic community in Turkey, but also with the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Istanbul and spiritual leader of the Orthodox Church, Bartholomew I, in order to promote ecumenical dialogue, as Francis did when he travelled to Turkey in 2014. Before his death, Francis had apparently expressed his wish that his successor also travel to Nicaea, a wish that Leo XIV is now preparing to fulfil.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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