The China Mail - After call for Christian unity, pope leaves Turkey for Lebanon

Ending the first part of his maiden overseas tour since being elected leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, Leo boarded the papal plane which left Istanbul for Beirut, where he was expected to arrive around 3:45 pm (1345 GMT).

The two-nation tour is the first major international test for the first American pope, who was elected in May and whose understated style contrasts with that of his charismatic and impulsive predecessor, Francis.

Although Leo's visit drew little attention in Turkey, a Muslim-majority nation whose Christian community numbers only around 100,000, his 48-hour stopover is eagerly awaited in Lebanon, a religiously diverse country of 5.8 million inhabitants.

Since 2019, Lebanon has been ravaged by crises, including an economic collapse, a devastating port blast in Beirut in 2020 and the recent war with Israel, with Leo expected to bring a message of peace to the multi-faith country, whose last papal visitor was Benedict XVI in 2012.

In Turkey, Leo's visit was firmly focused on calls for greater unity among different branches of the Church.

He was the fifth pontiff to visit Turkey after Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II in 1979, Benedict XVI in 2006 and Francis in 2014 and began his trip on Thursday by holding talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Then he travelled to Iznik to mark 1,700 years since the First Council of Nicaea, one of the early Church's most important gatherings, which he celebrated at an ecumenical service alongside Patriarch Bartholomew I, leader of the world's 260 million Orthodox Christians.

Saturday saw Leo holding mass in Istanbul with thousands of worshippers braving heavy rain to celebrate with him, many of whom had travelled across Turkey to join the multilingual service that left participants and observers deeply moved by its beautiful and haunting choral interludes.

- 'My greatest dream' -

On his last day, Leo met privately with a bereaved father whose 14-year-old Italian-Turkish son died in February after being stabbed at a market in Istanbul.

"Today I cried, but I cried tears of joy, I came for Mattia Ahmet," Italian chef Andrea Minguzzi said of his son in remarks to reporters afterwards, thanking the pope for meeting him and "fulfilling one of the greatest dreams of my life".

Then he went to the Armenian Cathedral where he had words of encouragement for the largest of Turkey's Christian communities that counts some 50,000 members, thanking God "for the courageous Christian witness of the Armenian people throughout history, often amid tragic circumstances".

It was an apparent nod to the massacres the Armenians suffered at the hands of the Ottoman troops in 1915-1916 which has been qualified as genocide by around 30 countries, although Turkey firmly rejects the term.

"The Armenian people do not forget the popes who raised their voice in our times of suffering, who stood with Christian communities in danger and who upheld truth when the world hesitated," Armenian Patriarch Sahak Mashalian said.

"We pray that the Lord may use the immense moral voice and influence of papacy through Your Holiness for the safety of these vulnerable Christian communities, especially in the very region to which you will travel later today," he said.

"May the good Lord make you an angel of peace in those bleeding lands to herald glad tidings of enduring peace among war-worn peoples."

M.Chau--ThChM