Pope arrives in Lebanon in a bid to bring hope to a war-wracked region

ISTANBUL (AP) — Pope Leo XIV Sunday arrived in Beirut as he continues first foreign trip to bring a message of peace the region at a time of war and escalating tensions.

Leo touched down in Lebanon after a visit to Turkey to mark an important Christian anniversary at a time where the predominantly Sunni Muslim country of over 85 million has positioned itself as a key intermediary in talks to end the conflicts in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Pope Leo XIV wrapped up his visit to Turkey on Sunday before heading to Lebanon, where he aimed to bring a message of hope to its long-suffering people and bolster a crucial Christian community in the Middle East.

Leo had two key appointments in Istanbul before flying to Beirut: a prayer at the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral and a divine liturgy with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, whose invitation to commemorate an important Christian anniversary was the impetus for Leo’s visit.

Leo processed into the Armenian cathedral in a cloud of incense as a male choir chanted. He praised the “courageous Christian witness of the Armenian people throughout history, often amid tragic circumstances.” It was a reference to the World War I-era slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

Pope Francis had termed the massacre a “genocide,” angering Turkey, which denies a genocide took place. Leo was more diplomatic in his words on Turkish soil.

On the second leg of his maiden papal trip, Leo will visit Lebanon at a precarious moment for the small Mediterranean country after years of successive crises. He is fulfilling a promise of Pope Francis, who had wanted to visit for years, but was unable to as his health worsened.

Francis often quoted St. John Paul II, who in 1989 said that Lebanon was more than just a country. It was a “message” — a message of fraternity and coexistence. Under Lebanon’s power-sharing system, the country’s president is always a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the parliamentary speaker a Shiite.

Lebanon, a Muslim-majority country where about a third of the population is Christian, has always been a priority for the Vatican, a bulwark for Christians throughout the region. After years of conflict, Christian communities that date from the time of the Apostles have shrunk.

Leo was expected to try to encourage Lebanese who believe their leaders have failed them, and to encourage Lebanese Christians to stay or, if they have already moved abroad, to come home.

“The Holy Father is coming at a very difficult moment for Lebanon and for our region,” said Bishop George, archbishop of the Melkite Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Beirut. Lebanese are worried about the future, he said, and still fear a possible return to all-out war with Israel.

“In this difficult moment, the pope’s visit is a sign of hope. It shows that Lebanon is not forgotten,” he told reportersbefore the visit.

Series of crises

In 2019, the country’s currency and banking system collapsed and many Lebanese saw their savings evaporate. The financial crisis drove shortages of electricity, fuel and medicine.

Another disaster followed in 2020, when hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate improperly stored at the Beirut port detonated in an explosion that blasted through the surrounding neighborhoods, killing 218 people, wounding thousands more and causing billions of dollars in damage.

The highlight of Leo’s Lebanese visit will come on his last day, Dec. 2, when he spends time in silent prayer at the site of the blast on Aug. 4, 2020, and meets with some of its victims.

Lebanese citizens were enraged by the blast, which appeared to be the result of government negligence, coming on top of the economic crisis. But an investigation has repeatedly stalled, and five years on, no official has been convicted.

There are hopes among Lebanese that Leo will demand accountability from Lebanon’s political class and insist that there can be no peace without truth and justice.

Another important moment will come when Leo meets with young Lebanese. He’s expected to give them words of encouragement, amid the decades-long flight abroad, while also acknowledging their disillusionment over the failures of generations before them.

Lebanon’s ongoing conflict with Israel

After the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah entered into a low-level conflict with Israel that escalated into a full-fledged war in September 2024, killing more than 4,000 people in Lebanon and causing widespread destruction.

Despite a U.S.-brokered ceasefire that nominally ended the conflict two months later, Israel continues to launch near-daily airstrikes that it says aim to stop Hezbollah from rebuilding.

The pope “is coming to bless us and for the sake of peace,” said Farah Saadeh, a Beirut resident walking on the city’s seaside promenade. “We have to wait and see what will happen after he leaves, and we hope nothing is going to happen after his departure.”

Before Leo’s arrival, Hezbollah urged the pope to express his “rejection to injustice and aggression” that the country is being subjected to. It was a reference to the Israeli strikes. The group also urged its supporters to line up along the road the papal convoy will take from the airport to the presidential palace to pay their respects.

Hezbollah — a primarily Shiite group — has allied with several Christian political groups in the country, including the Free Patriotic Movement and Marada Movement.

However, the Christian party with the largest parliamentary bloc, the Lebanese Forces, is an opponent of Hezbollah and has criticized the group for pulling the country into a war with Israel.

Syrian Christians

In neighboring Syria, hundreds of thousands of Christians fled during the country’s 14 years of civil war.

The country’s former autocratic President Bashar Assad was ousted in an offensive led by Islamist insurgents last December. Since then, there have been outbreaks of sectarian violence and some attacks on religious minorities, including a suicide attack on a church in Damascus in June.

While the new government has condemned attacks on minorities, many accuse it of looking the other way or being unable to control allied armed groups.

A delegation of some 300 Syrian Christians, headed by a Greek Melkite Catholic priest, was set to travel to Lebanon to join a meeting between Leo and youth groups and pray in a public mass on Beirut’s waterfront.

“We are in need of someone like the pope to come and give us hope as Christians” at a time of “fear of an unknown future,” said 24-year-old Dima Awwad, one of the delegation members. “We wish that the pope would come to visit Syria as he visited Lebanon, to reassure the people and to feel that we are present as eastern Christians and that we need to be in this place.”

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Abby Sewell reported from Beirut.

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