It’s been 971 years since the great rift that led to centuries of rivalry between the Catholic Church in Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Church in Constantinople, now Istanbul.
Recent decades have seen a warming of ties between the two denominations, a rapprochement that Pope Leo XIV hopes to build on during his four-day visit to Turkey, which began on Thursday.
He plans to meet the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, on Saturday in Istanbul and dine with him on Sunday, before flying to Lebanon for Part 2 of the first international trip of his papacy.
“It bears a great symbolism for Christianity and it is definitely a very positive thing,” said Minas Vasiliadis, who runs Apoyevmatini, a Greek-language newspaper in Istanbul.
The meeting will not resolve longstanding differences between the congregations, he said, but greater amity can help “Christianity to accept its differences and move together in order to solve the problems of today.”
The pope’s visit to Turkey — a predominately Muslim country with a tiny Catholic population — is partly to commemorate the 1,700-year anniversary of an assembly in Nicaea, now the Turkish city of Iznik, east of Istanbul, at which Christian leaders defined tenets of their faith.
By emphasizing that creed, which Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants still follow regardless of other theological differences, the pope seeks to emphasize Christian unity, Vatican officials say.
