ISTANBUL (CNS) -- As he had done throughout his visit to Turkey, Pope Leo XIV spent his last morning in the country reaffirming the Catholic Church's commitment to the search for Christian unity.

The key symbol of that was the pope's presence at the Divine Liturgy celebrated by Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople Nov. 30, the feast of St. Andrew, patron of the patriarchate.

For decades the popes and patriarchs have sent delegations to each other's patronal feast celebrations -- the Vatican's celebration of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul June 29 and the patriarchate's celebration of St. Andrew's feast Nov. 30.

St. Peter and St. Andrew were brothers and were the first of the 12 Apostles to be called by Jesus.

After the liturgy, the pope and patriarch went to a balcony where they jointly blessed the people gathered below. 

Patriarch Bartholomew had been present at most of the events on Pope Leo's itinerary in Turkey, including the meeting in Ankara Nov. 27 with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and government and civic officials. The patriarch hosted the commemoration of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea Nov. 28, and he attended Pope Leo's Mass for the country's Catholic communities Nov. 29.

At the liturgy Nov. 30 in the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George, Pope Leo spoke about how for 60 years Catholics and Orthodox have followed "a path of reconciliation, peace and growing communion." 

The increasingly cordial relations have been "fostered through frequent contact, fraternal meetings and promising theological dialogue," he said. "And today we are called even more to commit ourselves to the restoration of full communion."

Especially important work has been done by the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, the pope said, but he noted that tensions among the Orthodox churches have led some of them to suspend their participation.

The commission's last plenary session was held in Egypt in 2023; the most noticeable absence was that of the Russian Orthodox Church, which broke relations with the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2018 when the patriarch recognized the autonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Pope Leo used his greeting at the Divine Liturgy to confirm that, "in continuity with the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and my predecessors," the pursuit of full communion among Christians "is one of the priorities of the Catholic Church. In particular, it is one of the priorities of my ministry as Bishop of Rome, whose specific role in the universal Church is to be at the service of all, building and safeguarding communion and unity."

In his homily at the liturgy, Patriarch Bartholomew restated the Orthodox commitment to unity and called for common Christian efforts to protect the environment and to end wars.

"We cannot be complicit in the bloodshed taking place in Ukraine and other parts of the world and remain silent in the face of the exodus of Christians from the cradle of Christianity" in the Holy Land, the patriarch said. 

Pope Leo's day had begun with a visit to Archbishop Sahak II Mashalian, the Armenian Apostolic patriarch of Constantinople, at his cathedral in Istanbul.

The celebrations of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea and its statement of faith that formed the basis of the Nicene Creed, are an affirmation that "we must draw from this shared apostolic faith in order to recover the unity that existed in the early centuries between the Church of Rome and the ancient Oriental Churches," the pope said.

"We must also take inspiration from the experience of the early church in order to restore full communion," he said; the goal is "a communion which does not imply absorption or domination, but rather an exchange of the gifts received by our churches from the Holy Spirit for the glory of God the Father and the edification of the body of Christ."

While Pope Leo paid tribute to "the courageous Christian witness of the Armenian people throughout history, often amid tragic circumstances," he was not more explicit about the politically sensitive subject of what many call the "Armenian genocide," when an estimated 1.5 million Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks in 1915-18.

Mardik Evadian, a local business owner who was present for the pope's visit, told reporters that for Armenians in Turkey "it is not important" that the pope use the word "genocide."

Armenians know what happened and remember their loved ones who were killed, he said, "but we are living in this country; maybe in old times there were pogroms, but now it is peacetime."
 

Pope Leo XIV and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who holds a primacy of honor among the Orthodox churches, signed a joint declaration yesterday, the third day of the first international trip of Pope Leo’s pontificate.