"It is a trip that I truly wish to make.” This is what Pope Francis said about visiting Turkey in 2025 to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, in a meeting with a delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople at the Vatican on June 28, 2024.
“I am pleased that the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity have begun to reflect on how to join in commemorating this anniversary, and I thank His Holiness Bartholomew for inviting me to celebrate it near the place where the Council met,” the Pope said.
As he does every year on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul -- June 29 -- the Pope received a delegation from the Orthodox Patriarchate sent by Patriarch Bartholomew I. This gesture of friendship is traditionally reciprocated on the feast of the patriarchate’s patron saint St. Andrew, on November 30, when a delegation from Rome travels to Istanbul.
An important anniversary
During the audience, the Pope recalled the upcoming 1700th anniversary of the first ecumenical council which took place from May 20 to July 25, 325, in Nicaea, today Iznik, a port city near Istanbul, Turkey. Bringing together all the ecclesiastical authorities from the East and the West, it produced the Nicene Creed, the first major text to summarize the Christian faith, still recognized as central by Catholics, Orthodox, and some Protestants.
Last May, Patriarch Bartholomew announced that Pope Francis intended to make the trip to Turkey. The pontiff had stated in February 2023 that a meeting was being prepared for the anniversary. Already in 2014, during an exchange between the two men, the Patriarch of Constantinople had expressed their wish to meet again in the city of Nicaea in 2025.
Should this project come to fruition, it would be Pope Francis' second trip to Turkey, following his visit to Ankara and Istanbul in 2014 -- which had an ecumenical tone.
A call for peace in the Holy Land
During this morning's audience, Pope Francis also recalled the meeting for peace in the Holy Land that he had celebrated in 2014 alongside Patriarch Bartholomew in the Vatican Gardens, with the Israeli and the Palestinian presidents.
"Ten years later, present events have tragically shown us the necessity and urgency of praying together for peace, so that the war may end, the leaders of nations and the parties in conflict may rediscover the path to concord, and all parties come to recognize one another as brothers and sisters," the Pope said. "Naturally, this invocation for peace extends to all current conflicts, particularly the war now being fought in war-torn Ukraine."
Lastly, the Pope strongly encouraged the rapprochement between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, whose relations were resumed with the meeting between Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem in 1964, after centuries of estrangement. The Pontiff assured “that dialogue between our Churches poses no risk to the integrity of the faith; rather, it is a necessity arising from our fidelity to the Lord and leading us to the whole truth.”
Prayers for the Jubilee
Pope Francis also asked the Orthodox delegation to pray for the upcoming 2025 Jubilee year, centered on the theme “pilgrims of hope,” and invited them to come. “At a time when so many men and women are prisoners of fear for the future, our Churches have the mission to proclaim always, everywhere, and to everyone Jesus Christ as “our hope,” the Pope said, as an explanation for his choice of the theme.
“I would be grateful if you and the Church you represent can accompany and support with your prayers this year of grace, so that abundant spiritual fruits may not be lacking. It would also be very nice to have you present,” the Pontiff said.