Schedule for Pope’s Turkey trip

The programme for Pope Francis’ visit to Turkey has been announced. Although prayers and meetings with Orthodox leaders dominate the schedule of the November 28-30 trip, Francis will also meet government leaders and visit Istanbul’s Blue Mosque.

Oct 30, 2014

VATICAN: The programme for Pope Francis’ visit to Turkey has been announced. Although prayers and meetings with Orthodox leaders dominate the schedule of the November 28-30 trip, Francis will also meet government leaders and visit Istanbul’s Blue Mosque.

His visit to this secular but Muslim country of nearly 77 million people also offers the opportunity for Pope Francis to join Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople for celebrations of the feast of St Andrew in Istanbul.

While the Pope will pray with, and meet privately with Patriarch Bartholomew on November 29 and attend his celebration of the November 30 feast day liturgy in Istanbul, Pope Francis will also visit the city’s Hagia Sophia Museum, an architectural masterpiece once regarded as the finest church of the Christian Byzantine Empire. It was later converted into a mosque in the 15th century and then turned into a museum in 1935 after Turkey became a secular state.

The scheduled stops underline Turkey’s varied cultural heritage and history as being at the crossroads of Christian Europe and the Muslim Middle East.

The first day of his trip, which will be spent in Ankara, the capital, will be dedicated to relations with the Turkish government, its office overseeing religious affairs and ambassadors serving in the country. The head of the department of religious affairs is Turkey’s highest Muslim authority. -- CNS

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