ANKARA (AP) — Pope Leo XIV arrived in Turkey on Thursday on his first overseas journey, fulfilling Pope Francis’ plans to mark an necessary Christian anniversary and convey a message of peace to the area at an important time in efforts to finish the battle in Ukraine and ease Mideast tensions.
Leo was welcomed on the tarmac of Ankara’s Esenboga Airport by a army guard of honor. Strolling alongside a turquoise carpet, he shook arms with Tradition and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, different officers and senior church figures from Turkey.
Later, he had a gathering deliberate with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a speech to the nation’s diplomatic corps. He’ll then transfer late Thursday on to Istanbul for 3 days of ecumenical and interfaith conferences that will likely be adopted by the Lebanese leg of his journey.
Talking to reporters on board his airplane, Leo acknowledged the historic nature of his first overseas journey and mentioned he has been trying ahead to it due to what it means for Christians and for peace on the earth.
Leo mentioned he is aware of the go to to commemorate a key ecumenical anniversary was necessary for Christians. However he mentioned he hoped his broader message of peace would resonate worldwide.
“We hope to also announce, transmit and proclaim how important peace is throughout the world. And to invite all people to come together to search for greater unity, greater harmony, and to look for the ways that all men and women can truly be brothers and sisters in spite of differences, in spite of different religions, in spite of different beliefs.”
Leo’s go to comes as Turkey, a rustic of greater than 85 million predominantly Sunni Muslims, has forged itself as a key middleman in peace negotiations for the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
Ankara has hosted rounds of low-level talks between Russia and Ukraine and has provided to participate within the stabilization power in Gaza to assist uphold the delicate ceasefire, engagements Leo could applaud in his arrival speech.
Response in Turkey
Turkey’s rising army weight, as NATO’s largest military after the U.S., has been drawing Western leaders nearer to Erdogan whilst critics warn of his crackdown on the nation’s essential opposition celebration.
Although assist for Palestinians and an finish to the battle in Ukraine is widespread in Turkey, for Turks who face an ongoing cost-of-living disaster, owing to market turmoil induced by shake-ups in home politics, worldwide politics is a secondary concern.
That would clarify why Leo’s go to has largely escaped the eye of many in Turkey, not less than exterior the nation’s small Christian group.
“I didn’t know he was coming. He is welcome,” mentioned Sukran Celebi. “It would be good if he called for peace in the world, but I don’t think it will change anything.”
Some mentioned they thought the go to by historical past’s first American pope was about advancing the pursuits of the US, or maybe to press for the reopening of a Greek Orthodox non secular seminary that has turn into a focus within the push for non secular freedoms in Turkey.
“If the pope is visiting, that means America wants something from Turkey,” mentioned Metin Erdem, a musical devices store proprietor within the touristic Galata district of Istanbul.
Historic anniversary
The primary impetus for Leo to journey to Turkey is to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, Christianity’s first ecumenical council.
Leo will pray with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, religious chief of the world’s Orthodox Christians, on the website of the A.D. 325 gathering in right this moment’s Iznik in northwestern Turkey, and signal a joint declaration in a visual signal of Christian unity.
Jap and Western church buildings had been united till the Nice Schism of 1054, a divide precipitated largely by disagreements over the primacy of the pope.
Whereas the go to is timed for the necessary Catholic-Orthodox anniversary, it is going to additionally enable Leo to bolster the church’s relations with Muslims. Leo is because of go to the Blue Mosque and preside over an interfaith assembly in Istanbul.
Asgın Tunca, a Blue Mosque imam who will likely be receiving the pope, mentioned the go to would assist advance Christian-Muslim ties and dispel fashionable prejudices about Islam.
“We want to reflect that image by showing the beauty of our religion through our hospitality — that is God’s command,” Tunca mentioned.
Non secular freedom in Turkey
Since coming to energy in 2002, Erdogan’s authorities has enacted reforms to enhance the rights of spiritual teams, together with opening locations of worship and returning property that had been confiscated.
Nonetheless, some Christian teams face authorized and bureaucratic issues when making an attempt to register church buildings, based on a U.S. State Division report on non secular freedoms.
The Catholic Church, which counts round 33,000 members in Turkey, has no formal authorized recognition within the nation “and this is the source of many problems,” mentioned the Rev. Paolo Pugliese, superior of the Capuchin Catholic friars in Turkey.
“But the Catholic Church enjoys a rather notable importance because we have an international profile … and we have the pope holding our backs,” he mentioned.
Doable tensions
One of many extra delicate moments of Leo’s go to will come Sunday, when he visits the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral in Istanbul. The cathedral has hosted all popes who’ve visited Turkey since Paul VI, except Francis who visited Turkey in 2014 when its patriarch was sick.
Francis visited him on the hospital, and some months later he vastly angered Turkey in 2015 when he declared that the slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks was “the first genocide of the 20th century.” Turkey, which has lengthy denied a genocide befell, recalled its ambassador to the Holy See in protest.
Leo has tended to be much more prudent than Francis in his public feedback, and utilizing such phrases on Turkish soil would spark a diplomatic incident. However the Vatican can also be navigating a tough second in its ties with Armenia, after its interfaith overtures to Azerbaijan have been criticized.
