Pope Leo toured the 17th-century mosque, but did not pray.
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 socks, toured 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.
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.
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
Other 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.
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.
