Pope Leo arrives in Turkey on first foreign trip
ANKARA, Turkey — Pope Leo
While his compatriots celebrate Thanksgiving, the plate of the first American pontiff will be full for a six-day tour of Türkiye and Lebanon which will be closely scrutinized. He plans to meet with religious and political leaders, lead mass in both countries and try to provide a boost to long-suffering Christian communities throughout the region.
Before his trip, Leo shared a Thanksgiving message with NBC News in which he encouraged everyone “to say ‘thank you’ to someone” and “recognize that we have all been given so many gifts, above all the gift of life.”
Gifts were shared aboard his flight to the Turkish capital, Ankara, including a pecan pie given to him by an NBC News correspondent. Leo told reporters that he and other Church leaders hoped to “announce, convey, proclaim the importance of world peace and invite all people to come together to seek greater unity.”
Later, in his first foreign speech since his election in May as head of the 1.4 billion-member church, Leo told Turkish political leaders that the world was experiencing “an increased level of conflict on a global level, fueled by dominant strategies of economic and military power.”
“We must under no circumstances give in to this,” he added. The future of humanity is at stake.”
Some had speculated that Chicago-born Leo might choose the United States for his first trip, or Peru, where he served for many years as a missionary and then as a bishop and archbishop, becoming a naturalized citizen in 2015.
But for Miles Pattenden, a historian of the Catholic Church at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, the choice of the Middle East was “not such a surprise” and it sent the message that the region “is the heart of Christianity.”
Turkey, where Leo will stay until Sunday, was the “obvious choice” because it was the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, Christianity’s first ecumenical council, Pattenden told NBC News in a telephone interview Wednesday.
Convened by Emperor Constantine, who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, the meeting of bishops and church leaders “produced the Nicene Creed, which is the standard statement of what Christians believe,” including the assertion that Jesus was the son of God, Pattenden said.
He added that it was “absolutely fundamental” to what Christians, including Catholics, believe today.
Leo will pray with the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, at the site of the 325 AD gathering in what is today known as Iznik, before signing a joint declaration in a sign of Christian unity.
“We all understand that 1,000 years of division have inflicted a deep wound that cannot be easily healed,” Barthélemy recently told the respected Greek daily Kathimerini, according to the Associated Press.
