On the morning of the third day of his first Apostolic Journey abroad, Pope Leo XIV visited the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, widely known as the “Blue Mosque,” one of Istanbul’s most significant places of worship.
According to the Holy See Press Office, “The Pope experienced the visit to the Mosque in silence, in a spirit of recollection and attentive listening, with deep respect for the place and for the faith of those who gather there in prayer.”
The mosque, completed in 1617 by Sultan Ahmed I on part of the former site of the Great Palace of Constantinople, is famed for its more than 21,000 Iznik ceramic tiles, predominantly blue and turquoise, which gave rise to its nickname. The construction of the mosque was meticulously documented in eight volumes, now preserved in the Topkapi Library, reflecting its intended status as a central place of worship in the Ottoman Empire.
Pope Leo was received at the mosque on Saturday morning by the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy; Istanbul’s provincial mufti, Emrullah Tuncel; and the mosque’s imam, Kurra Hafiz Fatih Kaya. Muezzin Musa Aşgın Tunca led the Pope on a brief tour inside the mosque.
Following the visit, the Pope is scheduled to meet privately with leaders of local Churches and Christian communities at the Syriac Orthodox Church of Mor Ephrem. Later, he will join Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople in the Doxology at the Patriarchal Church of Saint George.
Pope Leo becomes the third pontiff to visit the Blue Mosque, following Pope Francis in 2014 and Pope Benedict XVI in 2006. Benedict’s visit marked only the second time in history that a pope had visited a mosque, after John Paul II’s historic visit to the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus in 2001.
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