Pope Leonn walked into Istanbul's Blue Mosque in socks in his first visit to a Muslim place of worship
Pope Leon visited Istanbul's Blue Mosque on Saturday, removing his shoes in respect but not praying, in his first visit as a Catholic Church leader to a Muslim place of worship on his four-day visit to Turkey.
The first American pope from the US bowed slightly before entering the mosque and was led on a tour of the complex, capable of accommodating 10,000 worshippers, by Istanbul's imam and mufti.
Leon, walking in white socks, smiled during the 20-minute visit and joked with one of his guides, the mosque's chief muezzin, the official who leads the daily calls to prayer.
The Vatican appeared surprised that Leon did not stop to pray during the visit and that he was not met at the mosque by the head of Turkey's state religious organization, known as the diyanet, as had been planned.
About three hours after the visit, the Vatican issued a press release stating that both the prayer and the welcome had taken place, although they had not. The Vatican press office said the release had been sent by mistake.
Leo's first trip as pope closely watched
Askin Musa Tunca, the muezzin, told reporters after the visit to the mosque that he asked Leon during the tour if he wanted to pray for a moment, but the pope said he preferred to just visit the mosque.
The Vatican said in a statement immediately after the visit that Leon undertook the tour “in a spirit of reflection and listening, with a deep respect for the place and for the faith of those who gather there in prayer.”
Although Leon did not appear to be praying during the tour, he joked with Tunca. As the group left the building, the pope noticed they were being led to a door that is usually an entrance, where a sign said, “No exit.”
“Write dead end,” Leon said, smiling. Tunca replied: “You don't have to go out, you can stay here.”
The pope is in Turkey until Sunday on his first foreign trip as pontiff, which also includes a visit to Lebanon.
Leon, a relative unknown on the world stage before becoming pope in May, is being closely watched as he delivers his first speeches abroad and interacts with people outside of predominantly Catholic Italy for the first time.
The Blue Mosque is officially named after Sultan Ahmed I, the ruler of the Ottoman Empire between 1603 and 1617, who oversaw its construction. It is decorated with thousands of blue ceramic tiles, hence its popular name.
Pope Leo did not go to Hagia Sophia
The 17th-century building is located opposite the Hagia Sophia, a former Byzantine-era cathedral that Leon did not visit, unlike on previous papal trips to Turkey.
Hagia Sophia, one of the most important places of Christian worship for about a millennium, was converted into a mosque for 500 years after the fall of the Byzantine Empire.
It was turned into a museum by the secular republic of Turkey more than 70 years ago, but was turned back into a mosque by President Tayyip Erdogan in 2020.
The Vatican has not commented on Leon's decision not to visit the Hagia Sophia. The late Pope Francis, who visited the building during a trip to Turkey in 2014, said in 2020 that he was “very pained” that it had been turned back into a mosque.
Leon chose Turkey, a Muslim-majority country, as his first overseas destination to mark 1,700 years since a historic church council that produced the Nicene Creed, still used by most Christians around the world today.
At a ceremony Friday to commemorate the church council attended by Christian leaders from the Middle East, the pope condemned violence in the name of religion and urged Christians to overcome centuries of bitter divisions.
Addressing senior clerics in countries such as Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Israel, Leon called it scandalous that the world's 2.6 billion Christians are not more united.
