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POPE FRANCIS IN TURKEY TO PROMOTE RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE
12:46, 28 Nov 2014
Pope Francis begins a visit to Turkey on Friday with the delicate
mission of strengthening ties with Muslim leaders while condemning
violence against Christians and other minorities in the Middle East,
Reutersreports.
His three-day trip comes as Islamic State insurgents have captured
swathes of Iraq and Syria just over Turkey's southern borders,
declaring an Islamic caliphate and killing or driving out Shiite
Muslims, Christians and others who do not share their ultra-radical
brand of Sunni Islam.
Officials said religious tolerance and fighting extremism would be high
on the agenda in Ankara on Friday when Francis meets President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan and Mehmet Gormez, the top cleric in the majority-Muslim
but constitutionally secular nation.
In Istanbul, the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics will
meet Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of 300 million
Orthodox Christians worldwide, as part of an effort to forge closer
ties between the ancient western and eastern wings of Christianity.
They will issue joint calls on human rights and religious freedom
as well as on the fear that Christianity is disappearing from
its birthplaces in the Middle East, according to Rev. Dositheos
Anagnostopoulos, spokesman for the patriarchate.
The Turkey trip will be the third by Francis to a mainly Muslim nation,
after Jordan and Albania. Anagnostopoulos said Francis may pray inside
Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, one of Christendom's greatest cathedrals
for 900 years, one of Islam's greatest mosques for another 500,
and now officially a museum.
Such a move could upset some Muslims in Turkey, who would like to
see it revived as a mosque
http://www.armradio.am/en/2014/11/28/pope-francis-in-turkey-to-promote-religious-tolerance/
12:46, 28 Nov 2014
Pope Francis begins a visit to Turkey on Friday with the delicate
mission of strengthening ties with Muslim leaders while condemning
violence against Christians and other minorities in the Middle East,
Reutersreports.
His three-day trip comes as Islamic State insurgents have captured
swathes of Iraq and Syria just over Turkey's southern borders,
declaring an Islamic caliphate and killing or driving out Shiite
Muslims, Christians and others who do not share their ultra-radical
brand of Sunni Islam.
Officials said religious tolerance and fighting extremism would be high
on the agenda in Ankara on Friday when Francis meets President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan and Mehmet Gormez, the top cleric in the majority-Muslim
but constitutionally secular nation.
In Istanbul, the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics will
meet Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of 300 million
Orthodox Christians worldwide, as part of an effort to forge closer
ties between the ancient western and eastern wings of Christianity.
They will issue joint calls on human rights and religious freedom
as well as on the fear that Christianity is disappearing from
its birthplaces in the Middle East, according to Rev. Dositheos
Anagnostopoulos, spokesman for the patriarchate.
The Turkey trip will be the third by Francis to a mainly Muslim nation,
after Jordan and Albania. Anagnostopoulos said Francis may pray inside
Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, one of Christendom's greatest cathedrals
for 900 years, one of Islam's greatest mosques for another 500,
and now officially a museum.
Such a move could upset some Muslims in Turkey, who would like to
see it revived as a mosque
http://www.armradio.am/en/2014/11/28/pope-francis-in-turkey-to-promote-religious-tolerance/