Pope on a tightrope for trickiest visit yet
Protests and violence likely as Benedict XVI heads to Istanbul

Ian Traynor in Istanbul
Saturday November 25, 2006
The Guardian

St Sophia’s is a place of dizzying magnificence. One of the most sacred
sites in Christendom for the best part of a millennium, made over into the
sultans’ mosque of choice for almost 500 years, the Byzantine masterpiece today is
a museum that testifies to centuries of feuding between Christianity, Islam,
and secularism. So when Pope Benedict XVI takes to the Istanbul tourist trail
next Thursday to admire the mosaics under the soaring dome of the sixth
century basilica, it will be the most delicate moment of the most sensitive trip
the 79-year-old Bavarian has ever made.
Four days in Turkey will pitch the pontiff into the eye of the storm he
churned up in September when he linked Islam and the Prophet Muhammad with
violence and inhumanity as a force of unreason.
And the eight minutes he is to spend in the cavernous St Sophia’s on Thursday
afternoon will be watched and weighed for signals of the Vatican’s true
intent towards Turkey and, more crucially, the world’s Muslims.
Will the pontiff pray at the place the Turks call Ayasofya, that the Greeks
know as Haghia Sophia? Will he genuflect? Or quietly re-consecrate the shrine?
He is likely, say those in the know, to cross himself as he enters the
museum. The risk is that Benedict will send Turkey’s Muslims and much of the
Islamic world into paroxysms of fury if there is any perception that the Pope is
trying to re-appropriate a Christian centre that fell to the Muslims in 1453
when Byzantine Constantinople became Ottoman Istanbul.
"This is not a mosque. This is not a church. This is a museum," said an
Ayasofya official. "There can be no religious services here."
"It won’t be good if he prays here. It will offend our people," said Mehmet
Tayyar Kaya, a Turkish Muslim visiting the shrine with his wife and son. An
indication of the tension over St Sophia’s came earlier this week when a group
of young nationalists "occupied" the basilica before being dispersed by
police. "And if he crosses himself? So what," said Father Dositheos Anagnostopulos
of the Orthodox Christian patriarchate in Istanbul. "God’s temple is in
man’s heart – that’s more important than old stones and old buildings."
The St Sophia dilemma is but one illustration of the challenge facing
Benedict as he seeks in the days ahead to navigate the treacherous front line
between Christianity and Islam. An old man in a young papacy, he delivered the
most unfortunate speech of his 19 months as Pope at a Bavarian university 10
weeks ago. Willy-nilly, he nourished the hopes and prejudices of those who see
in the post-9/11 world a "clash of civilisations" between Islam and the west.
The speech was a dense theological homily on the relationship between faith
and reason. Roman Catholicism, he declared, represents a happy fusion of
Christian faith and ancient Greek rationality. By contrast, Islam, he intimated,
was a faith that was blind, devoid of reason and with a resulting tendency to
violence. In the most incendiary part of his speech, he quoted – hardly by
accident – a 14th century Byzantine emperor in this city. "Show me just what
Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and
inhuman," the emperor said.
Outrage
In the wake of the Danish cartoons crisis, in the midst of the conflicts in
Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, at a time of European
handwringing over how to deal with large Muslim minorities, the Islamic world
erupted in outrage at the Pope’s "insult" to the Prophet. Turkey’s top cleric
demanded an apology. Since the September speech Benedict has repeatedly voiced
regret for any offence he caused. But he has not retracted his remarks.
The result is that as the papal entourage prepares to arrive first in Ankara
on Tuesday, before moving on to Izmir and Istanbul, the Vatican appears to be
on the defensive, while Turkey and the Islamic world are suspicious and
hostile. The banks of the Bosphorus are plastered with banners declaring: "We
don’t want the Pope in Turkey." The Turk who tried to assassinate Benedict’s
predecessor, John Paul II, in 1981, has warned from a Turkish prison cell that
Benedict’s life is in danger. Shots have been fired outside the Italian
consulate in Istanbul; a plane was hijacked in a papal protest. Tens of thousands
of anti-Pope protesters are expected to converge on an Istanbul field
tomorrow.
Gunboats
The potential for trouble is high, the security operation is immense –
gunboats on the Bosphorus, snipers galore, decoy popemobiles. The Turkish
government insists Benedict is welcome, but at one time was having trouble
fielding
high-level figures to meet him. Recep Tayyip Erdogan originally had a pressing
engagement elsewhere, but last night a government official said Turkey’s
prime minister was hoping to meet the Pope on his arrival in the country after
all.
Kemal Kerincsiz, a key organiser of the "Stop Benedict" movement, said: "The
Pope coming here is an affront to our national sovereignty. And the worst
thing is his insults about Islam and the Prophet." Mr Kerincsiz is leader of the
ultra-nationalist Lawyers’ Union which, when not trying to impede the Pope,
is campaigning to jail writers like the Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk for
peacefully voicing their opinions about Turkey.
His office is hung with posters depicting the Pope and Bartholomew I, the
Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch of 250 million Orthodox Christians
worldwide, as a double-headed serpent. "Who’s complaining about freedom of
expression
now?" he says, grinning.
But is Pope-baiting a minority sport here? While Turkey is nervous about the
visit and things could turn ugly, it is more likely that traditional Turkish
hospitality will prevail, provided Benedict is diplomatically deft enough to
keep his balance on the Turkish tightrope.
Istanbul’s 530-year-old Fatih mosque is generally seen as the national
stronghold of strict traditional Islam. The sprawling grounds of the complex
yesterday were littered with flyers summoning the faithful to tomorrow’s big
anti-Pope protest.
But several men interviewed going into Friday prayers were generous in
welcoming Benedict and keen to give him the benefit of the doubt. "I don’t agree
with all these posters," said Ali Enuk, 40. "He knows how important Muhammad is
for the Muslims and he wouldn’t insult us. He’s a great religious leader. He
should come here."
Cevat Gulumser, 23, invoked an old Turkish expression of hospitality: "We
welcome him on to our heads and eyes. I won’t be going to the protest."
The chances are that Benedict will be seeking to mend fences. But while
Muslims will be measuring his every word, the Turkish establishment is more
likely to get a polite earful when it comes to Europe and to touchy issues of
religious freedom – Vatican code for the alleged persecution of Christians in
Turkey.
Istanbul, as the former capital of Byzantium, has also been the seat of
Orthodox Christianity for 1,700 years. Bartholomew I, a 65-year-old Turkish
Greek, is the symbolic head of world Orthodoxy and fears for the future of his
church in Turkey. For Turkish nationalists, Bartholomew is a Greek agent bent on
weakening and splitting up Turkey. The Turkish government refuses to restore
an old Orthodox seminary to Bartholomew, bans the training of Orthodox
priests and refuses residence or work permits for Orthodox clergy coming into
Turkey from outside.
For Benedict and the Vatican, Christianity rather than Islam is the point of
his visit, an attempt to invigorate the "dialogue" between the main western
and eastern variants of Christianity which split in the great schism of the
11th century. There are also some 30,000 Roman Catholics in Turkey, a
congregation the Vatican claims is discriminated against. "It’s a questionof human
rights. The Pope will definitely tackle this issue in Ankara with the
government," said Father Anagnostopulos, a retired biochemist who advises Bartholomew.

Anticipating the row, Ali Bardakoglu, the government bureaucrat and Muslim
cleric who oversees the 100,000 imams and other employees in Turkey’s mosques,
told Reuters: "If the Pope says Christians in Turkey are mistreated, I will
tell him that he has been seriously misinformed." He also signalled that the
government would challenge Benedict on his views on Europe and the EU. As
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he espoused the view that Turkey was a Middle Eastern
country that did not belong in the EU. There is no evidence that he has
changed his mind since becoming Pope.
But if Turkey’s difficult relationship with Europe and the fate of Christians
in Turkey are the key issues for the Ankara government and for the Vatican,
the impact of Benedict’s biggest trip will hinge on the gestures he makes
towards Islam. The Vatican announced last night that the Pope was considering a
brief stop at Istanbul’s Blue Mosque as "a sign of respect" after his visit
to St Sophia’s.
"We’re not against what he represents. We’re against him personally for what
he said," said Mr Gulumser at the Fatih mosque. "If he makes bridges and
makes peace, we will respect and like that."
· Backstory: Crusades to Bin Laden
The Christian-Muslim faultline first opened up in the decades following the
founding of Islam in the seventh century, with conflicts in Spain and France
in 722 and 732. The crusades were launched in the 11th century by western
Christians in an attempt to curtail the spread of Islam and to take controlof
the Holy Land. By then Muslims had conquered two-thirds of the ancient
Christian world.
Pope Urban II called for the first crusade at the Council of Clermont on
November 18 1095 after the Seljuk Turks had taken control of Jerusalem. Two
centuries of conflict followed in which parts of the Holy Land alternated between
Christian and Muslim control.
The last of these crusades in 1291 ended in defeat for the Christians with
the expulsion of the Latin Christians from Syria. After 1291, campaigns by
Christians against Muslims continued but began to wane by the 16th century as
papal authority declined. This period saw the fall of Constantinople in 1453,
where the forces of Mehmed II wrested control of the city from its Byzantine
rulers.
Conflicts have continued into the 20th century and include the killing of 1.5
million Armenian Christians by the Ottoman Turkish authorities between 1915
and 1923. In his messages Osama bin Laden refers to western-led conflicts in
the Middle East as a "Zionist-Crusader war against Islam". In 2000 Pope John
Paul II, sought forgiveness for all the past sins of the church, including
the crusades.