First the American Pope will reach Türkiye’s capital Ankara, where he will meet President Erdogan.
Pope Leo is on his first foreign trip as a Catholic leader to Turkey and Lebanon, two Muslim-majority countries, where he is expected to appeal for peace in the conflict-ravaged Middle East and urge unity among long-divided Christian churches.
The Pope has a packed three-day schedule in Turkey starting Thursday before heading to Lebanon, where he will be closely watched as he delivers his first speech abroad and visits sensitive cultural sites.
Recommended Stories
4 item listend of list
Foreign travel has become a major part of the modern papacy, with popes attracting international attention as they lead events, sometimes with crowds of millions, giving speeches on foreign policy and conducting international diplomacy.
Leo, 70, was due to depart Rome’s Fiumicino airport at around 06:40 GMT on Thursday with his entourage, and will first visit the Turkish capital Ankara, where he will meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and address political leaders.
The first pontiff from the United States has chosen Turkey as his first overseas destination to commemorate the 1,700th anniversary of a historic early church council there that created the Nicene Creed, still used by most of the world’s Christians today.
Leo was elected by the world’s cardinals at a conclave in May as the successor to the late Pope Francis. A relative unknown on the world stage before his election, Leo spent decades as a missionary in Peru and only became a Vatican official in 2023.
Francis was planning to visit Turkey and Lebanon, but was unable to go due to his deteriorating health.
After a brief visit in Ankara, Leo is also scheduled to fly to Istanbul, also known as Constantinople, the capital of the former Roman Empire, on Thursday evening.
#PapalionXIV è in partenza per la #Turchiya #TurkiyeTappa del suo primo viagio apostolico.
Fiumicino Dove con Scolo Romano on Ita Airways flight in Ankara pic.twitter.com/yHd6oMWLkx– Vatican News (@vaticannews_it) 27 November 2025
,Translation: Pope Leo will depart for Turkey on his first apostolic visit. He was seen arriving at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport, from where he will board an Italian Airways flight to Ankara.,
In Istanbul, at St. Anthony of Padua Parish, the city’s largest Catholic church, preparations are underway to welcome Leo, who is only the fifth Pope to visit Turkey after Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II in 1979, Benedict XVI in 2006 and Francis in 2014.
Istanbul is home to Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians.
Orthodox and Catholic Christians split in the East–West Schism of 1054, but have generally sought closer ties in recent decades.
On Friday, Leo and Bartholomew will travel to Iznik, 140 km (90 miles) southeast of Istanbul, once called Nicaea, where early churchmen drafted the Nicene Creed, which outlines what are still the core beliefs of most Christians today.
In a departure from normal practice – the Pope usually speaks Italian on foreign visits – Leo is expected to speak English in his speeches in Turkey.
On Sunday, Leo will depart for religiously diverse Lebanon, a nation that has been wracked by a devastating economic and political crisis since 2019 and which has been the target of repeated bombings by Israel in almost daily violations of the ceasefire with Hezbollah that was agreed to end the war a year ago.
Israel has killed more than 330 Lebanese in the last year since the ceasefire agreement.
On Sunday, Israel killed Hezbollah chief of staff Haitham Ali Tabatabai in an airstrike on the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said Monday that the necessary security precautions were being taken to ensure the pope’s safety in Lebanon, but he would not comment on specifics.
<a href