Pope Leo to meet Middle East Christian leaders in bid for unity

28/11/2025 16:43

Pope Leo will meet in Turkey on Friday with Christian leaders from across the Middle East, and is expected to urge unity among denominations divided for centuries during his first overseas trip as leader of the global Catholic Church.



The first U.S. pope will attend a celebration for the 1,700th anniversary of a landmark early Church council, held in modern Turkey. It produced the Nicene Creed, still used by most of the world's 2.6 billion Christians today.



Friday's ceremony is the central impetus for Leo's four-day visit to mainly Muslim Turkey, where he is being closely watched as he makes his first speeches overseas and interacts for the first time with people outside largely Catholic Italy.



Leo, a relative unknown on the world stage before becoming pope in May, arrived in Turkey on Thursday. In his first overseas speech, he lamented that the globe was seeing an unusual number of bloody conflicts.



At an event with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, the pope warned that a third world war was being "fought piecemeal", with humanity's future at risk.