ROME (AP) — Pope Francis said on Thursday that he hopes to travel to Turkey next year to commemorate the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, Christianity’s first ecumenical council.
The visit to Nicaea, today located in İznik on a lake southeast of Istanbul, would come during Francis’ big Holy Year, the once-every-quarter-century celebration of Christianity.
Francis is likely to use the occasion — the anniversary of a council before the Great Schism of 1054, which divided the church between East and West — to once again reach out to Orthodox Christians. Nicaea is one of seven ecumenical councils that are recognized by the Eastern Orthodox.
The spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew I, said in September that he expects Francis would visit to commemorate the anniversary in May 2025.
Under Emperor Constantine I, the 325 Council of Nicaea gathered some 300 bishops, according to the Catholic Almanac. Among the outcomes was the Nicaean Creed, a statement of faith that is still recited by Christians today.
Francis announced his hope to visit Nicaea during an audience Thursday with the Vatican’s International Theological Commission. He told the theologians that the Council of Nicaea was a “milestone in the history of the church but also of humanity as a whole.”
Francis made his first visit to Turkey in 2014 and met with Bartholomew there, as well as earlier that year in Jerusalem and on several occasions at the Vatican since.
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