ISTANBUL, Turkey (RNS) — Pope Leo XIV removed his shoes and entered Istanbul’s Blue Mosque for a moment of silent reflection on Saturday (Nov. 29), accompanied by the head of Turkey’s powerful department for religious affairs, the Diyanet, in what observers called a small but necessary step toward deepening dialogue between the Catholic Church and Islam.
The pope took the tour of the mosque “”in a spirit of reflection and listening, with deep respect for the place and for the faith of those who gather there in prayer,” according to an official Vatican statement.
The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, large enough to accommodate 10,000 worshippers, is named for a 17th century Ottoman ruler, but is widely referred to as the Blue Mosque for the more than 20,000 brightly colored Iznik tiles that adorn its walls.
Built in 1609, it is a monument to the Muslim sultans’ dominance in a city that has long been a center of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The Hagia Sophia, built as a Byzantine church a millennium earlier, a short walk away, became a mosque under the Ottomans until the secularizing Turkish P …