Pope visits Istanbul's Blue Mosque, but does not pray, as he focuses on unifying Christians

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) — Pope Leo XIV visited Istanbul’s iconic Blue Mosque on Saturday but didn't stop to pray, as he opened an intense day of meetings and liturgies with Turkey’s Christian leaders where he again emphasized the need for Christians to be united.

Leo took his shoes off and, in his white sock,s toured the the 17th-century mosque, looking up at its soaring tiled domes and the Arabic inscriptions on its columns as an imam pointed them out to him.

The Vatican had said Leo would observe a “brief moment of silent prayer” in the mosque, but he didn't. An imam of the mosque, Asgin Tunca, said he had invited Leo to pray, since the mosque was “Allah's house,” but the pope declined.

Speaking to reporters after the visit, Tunca said he had told the pope: "It’s not my house, not your house, (it’s the) house of Allah,” he said. He said he told Leo: “'If you want, you can worship here,’ I said. But he said, ‘That’s OK.’”

“He wanted to see the mosque, wanted to feel (the) atmosphere of the mosque, I think. And was very pleased,” he said.

Later, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said: “The pope experienced his visit to the mosque in silence, in a spirit of contemplation and listening, with deep respect for the place and the faith of those who gather there in prayer.”

The Vatican then sent out a corrected version of its bulletin about the trip, removing reference to the planned “brief moment of silent prayer," without further explanation. No reason was given for why Leo's planned tour guide also changed.

Leo, history's first American pope, was following in the footsteps of his recent predecessors, who all made high-profile visits to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, as it is officially known, in a gesture of respect to Turkey’s Muslim majority.

Papal visits to Blue Mosque often raise questions

But the visits have always raised questions about whether the pope would pray in the Muslim house of worship, or at the very least pause to gather thoughts in a meditative silence.

There were no doubts in 2014 when Pope Francis visited: He stood for two minutes of silent prayer facing east, his head bowed, eyes closed and hands clasped in front of him. The Grand Mufti of Istanbul, Rahmi Yaran, told the pope afterwards, “May God accept it.”

When Pope Benedict XVI visited Turkey in 2006, tensions were high because Benedict had offended many in the Muslim world a few months earlier with a speech in Regensburg, Germany that was widely interpreted as linking Islam and violence.

The Vatican added a visit to the Blue Mosque at the last minute in a bid to reach out to Muslims, and Benedict was warmly welcomed. He observed a moment of silent prayer, head bowed, as the imam prayed next to him, facing east.

Benedict later thanked him “for this moment of prayer" for what was only the second time a pope had visited a mosque, after St. John Paul II visited one briefly in Syria in 2001.

Hagia Sophia left off itinerary

Past popes have also visited the nearby Hagia Sophia landmark, once one of the most important historic cathedrals in Christianity and a United Nations-designated world heritage site.

But Leo left that visit off his itinerary on his first trip as pope. In July 2020, Turkey converted Hagia Sophia from a museum back into a mosque, a move that drew widespread international criticism, including from the Vatican.

After the mosque visit, Leo held a private meeting with Turkey’s Christian leaders at the Syriac Orthodox Church of Mor Ephrem. In the afternoon, he was expected to pray with the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew, at the patriarchal church of Saint George.

There, they were to sign a joint statement. The Vatican said in his remarks to the patriarchs gathered, Leo reminded them “that division among Christians is an obstacle to their witness.”

He pointed to the next Holy Year to be celebrated by Christians, in 2033 on the anniversary of Christ's crucifixion, and invited them to go to Jerusalem on “a journey that leads to full unity.”

Leo was ending the day with a Catholic Mass in Istanbul's Volkswagen Arena for the country's Catholic community, who number 33,000 in a country of more than 85 million people, most of whom are Sunni Muslim.

Marking an important moment in Christian history

Leo had prayed with these Christian leaders on Friday in Iznik, at the site of the A.D. 325 Council of Nicaea, the highlight of his trip. The occasion was to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the council, the unprecedented meeting of bishops that produced the creed, or statement of faith, that is still recited by millions of Christians today.

Standing over the ruins of the site, the men recited the creed. Leo urged them “to overcome the scandal of the divisions that unfortunately still exist and to nurture the desire for unity.”

The Nicaea gathering took place at a time when the Eastern and Western churches were still united. They split in the Great Schism of 1054, a divide precipitated largely by disagreements over the primacy of the pope, and then in other splintering divisions. But even today, Catholic, Orthodox and most historic Protestant groups accept the Nicaean Creed, making it a point of agreement and the most widely accepted creed in Christendom.