It will be the first time the American pope — elected in May as the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics — visits a Muslim place of worship since succeeding his late predecessor, Pope Francis, who strongly advocated dialogue with Islam.

With this highly symbolic gesture, Leo follows in the footsteps of Pope Benedict XVI, who visited the site in 2006, and Pope Francis, who did so in 2014 accompanied by the Grand Mufti of Istanbul. Unlike them, however, he will not visit the nearby Hagia Sophia, the iconic sixth-century basilica built during the Byzantine Empire and converted into a mosque after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. In a major reform led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Hagia Sophia was turned into a museum in 1935, and fifty years later, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In 2020, however, it was reconverted into a mosque — a move that drew widespread international criticism, including from the late Pope Francis, who said he was “very saddened” by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision. Critics have accused Erdoğan and his Islamist-rooted AKP party of eroding the secular foundations of the Muslim-majority country. The Blue Mosque — named after the striking blue Iznik tiles that adorn its interior — remains one of Istanbul’s most popular tourist attractions. (Bssnews)