By Fr Nicola Kazarian
Originally, the trip to celebrate the 1700 anniversary of the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea with His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew was scheduled for the month of May and for a different Pope. Plans had to change as Pope Francis reposed in the Lord on Monday after Easter and a new bishop of Rome was elected. While Pope Leo XIV indicated the social dimension of his very new tenure, questions around his ecumenical vision quickly arose.
His installation was a first successful test as many Christian leaders, including Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew were present. But would he continue walking on the pilgrimage of reconciliation and unity engaged by his predecessors, especially with the Orthodox Church? The common celebration of the 1700th anniversary of the council of Nicaea would be an important indicator of embracing their ecumenical vision and writing his own chapter.
Pope Leo XIV is about to set foot on Turkish soil for his historic journey to İznik (ancient Nicaea) and Constantinople, today’s Istanbul, for his first international trip since his election, but also entering a spiritual landscape marked by centuries of shared faith, painful memory, and sincere efforts toward reconciliation. His visit unfolds in the long shadow yet radiant spirit of a decisive moment sixty years earlier, when Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI met in Jerusalem in 1964. That encounter unfroze nearly a millennium of estrangement and opened a path of hope toward the restoration of communion between the Churches in the East and the West. It was an embrace not merely of two men, but of two historic Sister Churches beginning to breathe again the same air.
Nicaea: The First Ecumenical Council and the Creed that Unites
The first stage of Pope Leo’s visit will bring him to İznik, the ancient city of Nicaea, where in 325 the fathers of the Church gathered under the Emperor Constantine for the First Ecumenical Council. There, the foundational confession of Christianity—the Nicene Creed—took form. As Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew stated in his Encyclical issued on the occasion of the anniversary: “The principle of ‘divine-human reality’ comprises the answer to the impasse of the contemporary vision of a ‘man-god.’ Therefore, the reference to the ‘spirit of Nicaea’ presents an invitation for us to turn to the essential aspects of our faith, the nucleus of which is the salvation of humankind in Christ.”
Standing at the site where the bishops of the early Church forged the language of orthodoxy, Pope Leo will manifest that same Creed remains the bedrock of Catholic and Orthodox faith alike. Despite the wounds of schism, the Creed continues to echo as a shared heartbeat, a reminder that East and West still acknowledge the same mystery of Christ’s incarnation.
Equally powerful is the symbolic representation of the unity of ancient Christianity during the ecumenical celebration, at the invitation of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. For the first time in history, representatives of the five ancient patriarchal sees—Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem—will stand together at Nicaea to commemorate the council’s 1700th anniversary. Their presence will be more than ceremonial: it is a living icon of the Church’s original unity, an image of a communion that once was, and may one day be restored.
The Patronal Feast of the Ecumenical Patriarchate: A Shared Joy
From İznik, Pope Leo will journey to Istanbul, where he will join Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for the patronal feastday of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, honoring the Apostle Andrew, the First-Called.
The liturgical and fraternal celebrations at the Phanar carried a deep ecclesial resonance. Just as Saint Peter and Saint Andrew were brothers in the flesh, so too Rome and Constantinople understand themselves as Sister Churches. Pope Leo’s presence brings this apostolic brotherhood into renewed focus, also called the “dialogue of love,” in reference to the rapprochement initiated by Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI who visited the Phanar for the first time in 1967. In 1979, Pope John Paul II was the first pope to come to the Ecumenical Patriarchate for this celebration, initiating a new milestone, also called the “dialogue of truth” with the establishment that same year of the joint international commission of the theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Pope Benedict XVI also attend the celebration in 2006, followed by Pope Francis in 2014.
The feastday celebrations embody the very spirit of the dialogue of love between Rome and Constantinople: a relationship grounded in mutual respect, honest theological engagement, and the shared conviction that the Lord’s prayer “that they may all be one” (John 17:21) is not a distant dream but an urgent mandate.
Orthodox–Catholic Relations Today: A Dialogue of Truth
After decades of rapprochement, the dialogue between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches remain. In 2020, His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America stated about the dialogue: “The transformation of the dialogue of charity into the dialogue of truth, that is to say, the shift from gestures of rediscovered fraternity to an exchange of theological programs, marks the fruitful maturation and growing confidence to tackle the heart of our division.”
One of the most pastoral and visible issues is the question of a common date for Easter. The differing calendars used by the two Churches often lead to separate celebrations of Pascha, fragmenting the witness of Christians worldwide. The providence this year allowed for the joint celebration of Christ’s resurrection. While discussions on this topic took place under the leadership of Pope Francis, one should wonder if this is still a priority.
Moreover, the question of synodality in the Church has been a rediscovered principle shared by the East and West: the churches walking now together, guided by the Holy Spirit, through mutual listening and discernment, while its experience articulated with the application of primacy in the first and second millennium might have been different, if not contradictory. But the dialogue on the nature of the papacy continues to be studied carefully.
Finally, the longstanding controversy of the Filioque—the Western addition to the Creed of the expression “and of the Son”—is now treated by the international commission. No doubt, that it will be inspired by the 2003 document produced on this very issue by the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation, and titled “The Filioque: A Church-Dividing Issue?” The document recommended among other things: “that our Churches commit themselves to a new and earnest dialogue concerning the origine and person of the Holy Spirit, drawing on the Holy Scriptures and on the full riches of the theological traditions of both our Churches, and to looking for constructive ways of expressing what is central to our faith on this difficult issues.”
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Pope Leo XIV’s Apostolic Visit to Türkiye is more than a diplomatic visit or a symbolic gesture. It is a pilgrimage of memory and hope—a remembrance of the Church’s shared origins, a celebration of bonds that endure despite centuries of separation, and a hopeful turning toward a future in which unity may be restored and rediscovered as a gift.
From the sacred stones of Nicaea to the spiritual heart of the Phanar, the Pope’s journey echoes the words sealed sixty years ago in the joint Catholic-Orthodox Declaration of 1965 lifting up the 1054 excommunications: “Through the action of the Holy Spirit [the] differences will be overcome through cleansing of hearts, through regrets of historical wrongs, and through an efficacious determination to arrive at a common understanding and expression of the faith of the Apostles and its demands.” This is the journey from Jerusalem then to Nicaea today.
