Sawt Falasteen - Pope visits Istanbul's Blue Mosque

It was the first time the American pope, elected in May as leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, visited a Muslim place of worship since taking over from his late predecessor Francis.

The Blue Mosque is one of Istanbul's main tourist attractions, with six minarets and a roof of cascading domes, its interior lined with vibrant blue Iznik tiles.

With such a highly symbolic gesture, Leo follows in the footsteps of Pope Benedict XVI, who visited the site in 2006, and Francis who did the same in 2014.

Like all visitors, the pope removed his shoes to enter the mosque, walking onto the burnt orange carpet in white socks -- not a mandatory part of the papal uniform but in this case a likely nod to Leo's favourite baseball team, the Chicago White Sox.

He spent about 15 minutes inside, with Muslim dignitaries showing him around, as overhead a stray crow circled under the vast domes, cawing as it sought a way out, according to an AFP correspondent with the delegation.

"He wanted to see the mosque, he wanted to feel the atmosphere of the mosque and he was very pleased," Askin Tunca, the Blue Mosque's muezzin who calls the faithful to prayer, told reporters.

Outside several dozen onlookers gathered behind high barriers, most of them foreign tourists.

"The pope's travels are always very beautiful thing because he brings peace with him," smiled Roberta Ribola, a 50-year-old tourist from northern Italy who was waiting outside.

"It's good that people from different cultures meet, especially as foreigners are riddled with Islamophobia," said Sedat Kezer, 33, a street food vendor hawking grilled corn-on-the-cob.

"But the pope would seem more sincere if he mingled with the public. No one can see or interact with him," he said, gesturing to the huge security deployment outside the mosque.

Others were openly frustrated.

"The pope has no business here," snapped Bekir Sarikaya, a Turkish tourist in his 40s who said his parents had "travelled 1,000 kilometres" to pray there only to be denied access.

But his wife disagreed. "We can visit the churches of Istanbul, so he has the right to visit our mosques," she argued.

Unlike his predecessors, Leo did not visit the nearby Hagia Sophia, the legendary sixth-century basilica built during the Byzantine Empire, which was converted into a mosque under the Ottoman Empire then became a museum under Turkey's newly established republic.

But in 2020, the UNESCO World Heritage site was converted back into a mosque in a move that drew international condemnation, including from the late Francis who said he was "very saddened".

On Saturday afternoon, Leo meets local church leaders and joins a brief service at the Patriarchal Church of St. George before meeting Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I at his palace on the banks of the Golden Horn estuary.

There, the pair will sign a joint declaration, the content of which has not yet been made public.

At 1400 GMT, Leo will hold a mass at the city's Volkswagen Arena, where some 4,000 worshippers are expected to join him.

On Sunday morning, after a prayer service at the Armenian cathedral and leading a divine liturgy, the Orthodox equivalent of a mass, at St George's, he will head to Lebanon for the second leg of his trip -- his first overseas tour since being elected to the position.

H.Jarrar--SF-PST