Pope Leo XIV arrived in Turkey on Thursday for a three-day apostolic visit, the first papal journey to the country since Pope Francis travelled there in 2014.
The visit coincides with the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, and comes days after the publication of a detailed report documenting the continuing difficulties faced by Turkey’s Christian minority.
Turkey is home to some of the earliest Christian communities and was the setting for several events recorded in the New Testament. Seven of the churches addressed in the Book of Revelation are located within its modern borders.
The Council of Nicaea, held in what is now the town of İznik, produced the original version of the Nicene Creed, a central statement of Christian belief still recited in churches worldwide.
Official Turkish statistics do not record religious affiliation, but estimates place the current Christian population at around 257,000 people – fewer than 0.3% of the country’s 85 million inhabitants. In 1915, Christians made up approximately 20% of the population of the same territory.
A 50-page report published on 24 November by the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) states that Christians in Turkey continue to face legal, administrative and social obstacles.
It says that the decline in Turkey's Christian community over the last century "stems from genocides, pogroms, and systematic state policies aimed at creating an ethnically and religiously homogeneous Turkish Sunni Muslim nation".
Key points include at least 12 documented physical attacks on churches since 2020, some involving firearms or explosives, and the expulsion of dozens of foreign Protestant pastors and charity workers on supposed national-security grounds, amounting to the "systematic targeting" of foreign clergy.
The negative portrayal of Christianity and Christian converts is common in textbooks and media, it says. "Hate speech" against Christians is "widespread" in the media and public discourse.
The report also details the confiscation or transfer of ownership of more than 1,000 church properties since 2002, and the continued denial of legal personality to many Christian associations, preventing them from owning property in their own name or opening churches.
The Halki (Heybeliada) Theological Seminary has been closed since 1971, limiting the training of Orthodox clergy, the report notes.
It quotes President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 2019 statement, made in the presence of then US President Donald Trump, that the seminary would be reopened. Despite this, no steps towards reopening it have been taken.
The report goes on to say that UNESCO should request an evaluation of the status of Christian heritage sites in Turkey, including Hagia Sophia, Chora, and Syriac monasteries. The Hagia Sophia was controversially made a mosque again in 2020.
"The ECLJ calls on Turkey to respect and protect its Christian citizens and residents, to uphold its obligations under the Treaty of Lausanne, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and to guarantee genuine freedom of religion and belief for all," the report said.
During his weekly audience on 24 November, Pope Leo XIV asked Catholics to accompany his journey with prayer, describing Turkey and Lebanon as “lands rich in history and spirituality”. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin noted that Turkey remains “the cradle of Christianity” and underlined the importance of the Nicene Creed in defining core Christian doctrine.
The Pope’s programme includes a meeting with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, and a visit to the site of the Nicaean Council in İznik. He will then travel onward to Lebanon.
