ISTANBUL – On his second day in Turkey, Pope Leo met with the pastors of the country’s small Catholic flock, offering a word of encouragement as they face dwindling numbers and discrimination.

Speaking to bishops, clergy, religious and pastoral workers in the Latin-rite Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Istanbul Nov. 28, the pope traced the ancient presence of Christians in the region and applauded the diversity of rites still prevalent in Turkey today.

“Dear friends, your communities emerged from the richness of this long history, and it is you who are called today to nurture the seed of faith handed down to us by Abraham, the Apostles and the Fathers,” he said.

This history, he said, “is not something merely to be remembered and then venerated as a glorious past while we look with resignation at how small the Catholic Church has become numerically. On the contrary, we are invited to adopt an evangelical vision, enlightened by the Holy Spirit.”

“When we look with God’s eyes, we discover that he has chosen the way of littleness, descending into our midst,” he said, noting that Jesus in the Gospels consistently prioritizes the small and weak.

To this end, he invoked the image of the mustard seed, which is small but grows into one of the largest bushes, telling Istanbul’s clergy that “This logic of littleness is the Church’s true strength.”

“It does not lie in her resources or structures, nor do the fruits of her mission depend on numbers, economic power or social influence,” Leo said, and, quoting Pope Francis, insisted that, “A Christian community in which the faithful, priests and bishops do not follow the path of littleness has no future.”

Pope Leo XIV met with bishops, clergy, religious and pastoral workers Friday as part of the first international trip of his papacy, which will also take him to Iznik, formerly Nicaea, to commemorate the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, and to Lebanon.

Christians in Turkey, while enjoying a long and important history in the country, with eight ecumenical councils held there over the centuries, are now a tiny minority in a nation that is a majority Muslim.

Consisting of roughly one percent of the overall population, Christians in Turkey belong to several different rites, including Roman Catholicism, the Armenian Catholic Church, the Byzantine rite, Syriac Orthodox, some protestant churches, and the Eastern Orthodox.

The Patriarchate of Constantinople, led by Patriarch Bartholomew I and which oversees some three million Orthodox Christians worldwide, is headquartered in Istanbul.

Turkey has long faced criticism over its treatment of religious minorities, with Christians complaining about daily discrimination, social pressure and lingering tensions from past bouts of violence. Many have emigrated abroad, and young Christian families contemplate a life elsewhere.

In this year’s Religious Freedom Report, Catholic charitable agency Aid to the Church in Need, Turkey received a low score, in part over the fact that Islam is still taught in schools as the official state religion, and many Christians are treated like second-class citizens, with a lack of representation in civil society. Turkey has also faced pressure over the deportation of Christian workers in the country in recent years, labeling them as security threats.

In 2020, Turkey faced international backlash for the decision to convert the Hagia Sophia, one of the most iconic monuments for both Christianity and Islam, into a mosque.

A UNESCO world heritage site since 1985, the 1,500-year-old Hagia Sophia was built under Byzantine Emperor Justinian and for centuries served as the heart of Eastern Christianity. It was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman Empire’s conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

Ever since Turkey’s Council of Ministers voted to turn the building into a museum, the Hagia Sophia has served as a symbol of unity and neutrality, being open to members of all faiths.

However, in July 2020 a Turkish court voted to reverse the 1934 decision, thus ending the monument’s status as a museum and reverting it into a mosque – a decision broadly condemned by Christian leaders of various rites and churches globally.

In the face of contemporary challenges, Pope Leo on Friday urged pastors and religious serving in Turkey to maintain an attitude of hope, rather than despair.

“The Church in Türkiye is a small community, yet fruitful like a seed and leaven of the kingdom. I therefore encourage you to cultivate a spiritual attitude of confident hope, rooted in faith and in union with God,” he said.

Leo said there is a need to bear witness to the Gospel “with joy and look to the future with hope,” pointing to the large number of young people involved in pastoral activities as a sign of hope for the future.

Echoing a call that his predecessor Francis frequently made, Pope Leo encouraged the inculturation of the faith, “so that the language, customs and culture of Türkiye become more and more your own. Moreover, the communication of the Gospel always passes through such inculturation.”

He also pointed to the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, calling it a “milestone in the history of the Church but also of humanity as a whole.”

To this end, he highlighted several challenges for Christians in modern Turkey, the first of which he said was the importance of, “grasping the essence of the faith and of being Christian.

Noting that the Church rediscovered its unity with the Creed, he said this creed is not merely a doctrinal formula, but an invitation “to seek – amid different sensibilities, spiritualities and cultures – the unity and essential core of the Christian faith centered on Christ and the Church’s Tradition.”

He also stressed the need to rediscover the trinitarian nature of the Christian belief in God, identifying God the Father in the face of Christ.

Noting that the Council of Nicaea reaffirmed the divinity of Jesus and God the father, the pope said that “In Jesus, we find the true face of God and his definitive word about humanity and history.”

“This truth constantly challenges our own ideas of God whenever they do not correspond to what Jesus has revealed. It invites us to ongoing discernment regarding our forms of faith, prayer, pastoral life and spirituality.”

Pope Leo also cautioned against a ‘new Arianism’ he said is present in contemporary culture, including among believers, and which consists of Jesus being admired “on a merely human level, perhaps even with religious respect, yet not truly regarded as the living and true God among us.”

“His divinity, his lordship over history, is overshadowed, and he is reduced to a great historical figure, a wise teacher, or a prophet who fought for justice – nothing more,” he said.

To this end, Nicaea is a reminder that Jesus is not a figure of the past, but is “the Son of God present among us, guiding history toward the future promised by God,” Leo said.

He also underlined challenges related to “the mediation of faith and the development of doctrine” in the contemporary church.

Reflecting on the development of doctrine, he noted that the Council of Nicaea unfolded with the philosophies and cultural context of its time, however, yet a few decades later the First Council of Constantinople, which took place in 381, further deepened and expanded the ideas developed in Nicaea.

Thanks to this process of development, the Council of Constantinople gave the church its modern “Nicene Creed,” which is professed collectively during Sunday Mass.

“Here too we learn an important lesson: the Christian faith must always be expressed in the languages and categories of the culture in which we live, just as the Fathers did at Nicaea and in the other Councils,” Leo said.

Christians, he said, must also distinguish “the essence of the faith from the historical formulas that express it – formulas that are always partial and provisional and can change as doctrine is more deeply understood.”

To this end, he pointed to Saint John Henry Newman, whom he recently declared a doctor of the church, saying Newman placed great emphasis on the development of Christian doctrine, “because doctrine is not an abstract, static idea, but reflects the very mystery of Christ.”

“Therefore, its development is organic, akin to that of a living reality, gradually bringing to light and expressing more fully the essential heart of the faith,” he said.

Pope Leo closed his speech referring to Saint John XXIII, who spent a decade as apostolic delegate in Turkey prior to his election, from 1935-1945, an image of whom is still displayed on the front of the Holy Spirit cathedral.

He voiced hope that citizens would be moved by the same passion John XXIII had for Turkey, “in order to keep alive the joy of faith, and continue to work as courageous fishermen in the Lord’s boat.”

After meeting with bishops, clergy and religious, Pope Leo made a private visit to a nursing home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, voicing gratitude for their service, saying, “the Lord has called you not only to assist or help the poor, but has also called you to be their ‘sisters!’”

“You are to be like Jesus, whom the Father sent to us not only to help and serve us, but also to be our brother. The secret of Christian charity is that before being for others, we must first be with others in a communion based on fraternity,” he said.

Leo said their work with the elderly is especially important in a culture that prizes materialism and efficiency and in which “the sense of respect for elderly people has been lost.”

“Therefore, a double thank you to this home, which welcomes people in the name of fraternity, and does so particularly with the elderly. We know that this is not easy as it requires a lot of patience and prayer,” he said, and offered them his blessing.

Pope Leo on Friday afternoon was scheduled by helicopter to Iznik to commemorate the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea with an ecumenical prayer service at the Basilica of Saint Neophytos.

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