After a year of negotiations with Ankara the Pope was invited by the Turkish government as a head of state and not, as originally intended, to meet with Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I at the Phanar headquarters.

This was to be the latest in a series of constructive encounters begun in 1964 between recent Popes and Ecumenical Patriarchs. The primary purpose of the visit was to strengthen the ongoing ecumenical theological dialogue inaugurated in l979 which had recently foundered over issues related to the status and role of the Eastern-rite Catholic Churches. Earlier this year, the Mixed Theological Commission took place in Belgrade, Serbia adding importance to the momentum provided by the papal visit to Istanbul.

This visit is crucial for the dialogue between the Western and Eastern Churches, which aims at organic reunion between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. This dialogue will be accomplished in a mutual relationship of truth, love and full communion. Additionally, the papal visit can highlight the crucial role that the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople plays within Orthodoxy. As “first among equals” Constantinople is historically the center of unity in the Orthodox communion and is responsible for acting on behalf of them all in ecumenical, inter-religious and global affairs.

Its problematic status in modern Turkey is complicated by the fact that it is systematically denied legal “personality” to govern itself, to own property, to choose its own leaders according to its canonical self-understanding and to enjoy basic human and religious rights. The papal visit will call attention to the plight of religious minorities in Turkey and can assist in opening the way for its eventual admission into the EU. These would have been the objectives of Benedict’s original visit if some additional matters had not intervened.

The Pope’s lecture in September at Regensburg, Germany created a storm of controversy in the already tense situation of Catholic-Muslim relations. In the context of Christian-Muslim polemics almost from the appearance of Islam in the 7th century, from John of Damascus to the emperor-theologian Manuel II Palaeologus in the 14th century (quoted in rather blunt fashion by Benedict), it is not atypical. Many similar insults and slanders had been made by both sides in the debates.

Yet, the furious reaction after the Regensburg lecture among Islamic extremists as well as intellectuals about the issues of violence and religion and the nature of faith and reason changed the nature of the current Catholic dialogue of recent decades. The papal visit to Turkey has presented Benedict with the opportunity to change the terms and the tone of the dialogue to issues of culture, civilization and morals in a global context. No doubt, the dialogue will engage the two faiths in their confrontation with secularized global culture, human rights and religious tolerance. Pope Benedict is off to a good start.