Pope Leo XIV‘s first visit to Turkey began on Thursday with his arrival in Ankara, in what is his first trip abroad since his election as the new Pope and the beginning of his pontificate. The pontiff thus begins a programme of several days of political and religious events in Ankara and Istanbul, at the invitation of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, which will also take him to visit the Turkish city of Iznik, the scene now 1,700 years ago of the Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council of Christianity, convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great.
According to the Turkish daily Hürriyet, the Bishop of Rome landed at Esenboğa airport aboard an ITA Airways A320neo aircraft, where he was received by Turkey’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, among other officials. On his trip to Türkiye the Pope arrived accompanied by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and the Holy See‘s foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, as well as more than 70 journalists who will cover his first foreign trip as Pope.
The Roman Pontiff’s schedule kicked off in Ankara at Anıtkabir, where as is traditional he laid a wreath at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk before moving on to the presidential complex for an official reception and a meeting with Erdoğan. He is also scheduled to hold meetings in the Turkish capital with various authorities, representatives of civil society and the diplomatic corps, as well as a visit to the Presidency of Religious Affairs (also known as Diyanet, the state agency that regulates all matters related to the Islamic faith in Turkey) to meet with its president, Safi Arpaguş.
After nearly six hours of meetings and events in the Turkish capital, the Pope’s schedule in Turkey will take him to Istanbul this afternoon. On Saturday he is scheduled to preside over a meeting with the clergy at the Basilica-Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Istanbul and to visit the French Poor House; he will then fly to the city of Iznik to take part in an inter-Christian ceremony marking the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea.
His programme in Istanbul also includes visits to the Blue Mosque, the Syriac Orthodox Mor Efrem Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Fener, where he will meet with the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church Bartholomew I and sign a joint declaration; Pope Leo XIV will also celebrate a mass in the Volkswagen Arena. The official visit to Turkey will conclude with a final service at the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral and a return to the Patriarchate of Fener to commemorate its founding anniversary, before departing Sunday afternoon from Atatürk Airport for Lebanon, the second leg of his first trip.
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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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