ISTANBUL: Pope Leo XIV wraps up a four-day trip to Turkiye Sunday after a warm welcome by its tiny Christian community, before heading to Lebanon with a message of peace for the crisis-mired nation.
On his first overseas trip since being elected leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, Leo met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before traveling to Iznik for a celebration marking 1,700 years since the First Council of Nicaea, one of the early Church’s most important gatherings.
On Saturday, Leo hosted thousands of worshippers who battled the rain to attend a public mass in Istanbul, with many traveling from across Turkiye to join the multilingual service, which left many moved by its beautiful and haunting choral interludes.
On his final morning, he was expected to attend a prayer service at the Armenian cathedral then lead a divine liturgy — the Orthodox equivalent of mass — at the Patriarchal Church of St. George before a final blessing.
He will have lunch with Patriarch Bartholomew I, the leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, a day after they signed a joint declaration in which they pledged to take “new and courageous steps on the path toward unity.”
