Pope in Turkey: Expected to appeal for peace in the Middle East and call for unity among Christian churches

Pope Leo XIV arrived in Turkey today on his first trip outside Italy as head of the Catholic Church, and is expected to make appeals for peace in the Middle East and call for unity among Christian churches that have long been divided.

The first American pope has chosen predominantly Muslim Turkey as his first foreign destination to mark the 1.700th anniversary of a landmark early church council held there that produced the Nicene Creed, now used by most of the world's Christians.

The Pope landed in the capital Ankara as part of a packed three-day schedule in Turkey, before heading to Lebanon.

The visit will be closely watched as he delivers his first speeches abroad and visits sensitive cultural sites.

"It's a very important trip because we still don't know much about Leo's geopolitical views, and this is the first big opportunity for him to express them clearly," Massimo Faggioli, an Italian academic who follows the Vatican, told Reuters.

Papal trips abroad attract global attention

Foreign travel has become an important part of the modern papacy, as popes attract international attention as they lead events with crowds of several million people, deliver speeches on foreign policy and conduct international diplomacy, Reuters writes.

Leo was elected in May by cardinals from around the world to succeed the late Pope Francis. Relatively unknown on the world stage before his election, Leo spent decades as a missionary in Peru and only became a Vatican official in 2023.

Francis had planned to visit Turkey and Lebanon, but was unable to due to poor health.

Lav, 70, was scheduled to meet with President Tayyip Erdogan and address political leaders in the Turkish capital.

Tonight he will travel to Istanbul, the home of Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of 260 million Orthodox Christians.

Orthodox and Catholic Christians split in the Great Schism of 1054, but in recent decades they have generally sought to build closer relations.

Leo and Bartholomew will travel on Friday to Iznik, 140 km southeast of Istanbul, formerly Nicaea, where early church fathers formulated the Nicene Creed, which still represents the basic beliefs of most Christians today.

In a departure from common practice, popes usually speak Italian on foreign trips, Leo is expected to speak English in Turkey.

Peace will be the key theme of the visit to Lebanon

Peace is expected to be a key theme of the pope's visit to Lebanon, which begins on Sunday.

Lebanon, the country with the largest percentage of Christians in the Middle East, has been shaken by the consequences of the conflict in Gaza while Israel and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah are at war, which culminated in a devastating Israeli offensive.

Last week, Israel killed a senior military official from Iran-backed Hezbollah in an airstrike on the southern outskirts of the Lebanese capital Beirut, despite a year-long ceasefire brokered by the US.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said on Monday that necessary security measures were being taken to ensure the pope's safety in Lebanon, but he did not want to give details.

Leaders in Lebanon, which hosts a million Syrian and Palestinian refugees and is struggling to recover from years of economic crisis, are concerned that Israel could drastically increase attacks in the coming months and hope the pope's visit could draw global attention to the country.