Pope Leo XIV will visit Istanbul's famed Blue Mosque early on Saturday on the third day of his trip to Turkey.

It will be the first time the American pope, who was elected in May as leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, visits a Muslim place of worship since taking over from his late predecessor Francis, who championed dialogue with Islam.

With such a highly symbolic gesture, Leo follows in the footsteps of Pope Benedict XVI, who visited the site in 2006, and Francis who did the same in 2014 accompanied by the Grand Mufti of Istanbul.

But unlike them, he will not be visiting the nearby Hagia Sophia, the legendary sixth-century basilica, which was built during the Byzantine Empire and converted into a mosque following the conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

In a key reform by pos

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