President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan personally presented his first gift, an edict of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, to Pope Francis on Nov. 28 in Ankara. Erdoğan explained that the edict was issued by the Ottoman state to protect the religious rights of the Christian clerics in Bosnia in the 15th century.

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times

Pope Francis prayed silently alongside a senior Islamic cleric in Istanbul’s Blue Mosque on Saturday, November 29, 2014, in a gesture of inter-religious harmony in a country bordering the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

Francis took off his shoes as he entered the huge mosque, before bowing his head in prayer for several minutes, facing Mecca and standing next to Istanbul’s Grand Mufti Rahmi Yaran, in what a Vatican spokesman described as a joint “moment of silent adoration” of God.

He later went to a joint service with Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of some 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide. The main purpose of his trip is to hold a joint ceremony on Sunday with Bartholomew to renew their commitment to reunite the eastern and western branches of Christianity.

Bartholomew’s seat remains in Istanbul, a vestige of the Byzantine Empire, even as his flock in Turkey has dwindled to less than 3,000 among a population of 75 million Muslims.

Pope Francis met President Tayyip Erdoğan and Patriarch Bartholomew I extensively during his recent visit to Turkey, but not all three together to my knowledge.

Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, previously known as Constantinople. Three of the early Ecumenical  Councils of Christianity, which formulated early Christian beliefs, were held in Constantinople

I am presenting a hypothetical Ecumenical meeting between three of them in the Blue Mosque, as I recall that all of the first seven Ecumenical Councils, which formulated the official Christian beliefs, were in different cities of present day Turkey, including Constantinople, which is now Istanbul and Nicaea.

Erdoğan: I want to welcome Pope Francis to Turkey and both of you to the Blue Mosque, which is the most visited mosque in Istanbul among more than 3000.

Bartholomew I: I want to thank Pope Francis for accepting my invitation to visit Turkey and President Tayyip Erdoğan for making it possible and also for the religious tolerance that Turkey has shown to the Christian minority in the country.

Pope Francis: Very glad to be here and thank you so much for the invitation.  Istanbul brings long memories of Constantinople.  For me it specially brings the memories of historic First and Second Ecumenical Councils of Constantinople and how I wish I could have been a delegate in those formative years rather than a Pope now.

I want to also thank Turkey for taking good care of Christian refugees from Syria.

Erdoğan: For the millions of faithful that are seeing this meeting live on Youtube, why don’t each of us introduce ourselves, in a few minutes.

Pope Francis: I am the real Pope of the only true and Catholic Church, unlike the rumors circulating out there that Pope Benedict XVI may still be the real Pope. I am the reigning Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, in which capacity I am both Bishop of Rome and absolute Sovereign of the Vatican City State.^[2] 

I have some 1.2 billion followers in the world.  Last year I was person of the year according to the Time magazine.  Need I say more?

Bartholomew I: I am the 270th and current Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch,^[1] regarded as the spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and thus “first among equals” in the Eastern Orthodox Communion, since 2 November 1991.  The Communion has almost 300 million members.

Erdoğan: I do not have millions of followers, but, I am serving my country of 70 million.  I am the 12th and current President of Turkey. From 2003–2014 I served as the 25th Prime Minister of Turkey and from 1994–1998 as the Mayor of İstanbul. I founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2001, leading it to three general election victories in 2002, 2007 and 2011 before stepping down as leader upon my election as President in 2014.

I have been in the top few, for several times, in The 500 Most Influential Muslims (also known as The Muslim 500), which is an annual publication first published in 2009.  It ranks the most influential Muslims in the world.

Pope Francis: I really like this Blue Mosque.  It is beautiful.  But, I have heard the architecture is copied from Hagia Sophia.

Erdoğan: You are perhaps right.  The Muslim architects may have borrowed from the architecture of Hagia Sophia.  But, you would also recall that we all learn from each other and how the whole of European science was built on the Muslim civilization, after the dark ages in Europe.

Bartholomew I: I second that I have been reading about all the great Arab and Muslim scientists and I have seen a large collection about Muslim Heritage in the Muslim Times.

Erdoğan: Let each of us now present our understanding of God.  As the host allow me to begin first.

Erdoğan about Allah: I believe in the one God of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jesus and Muhammad. Allah is beyond time, space and matter and He has been sending prophets to guide humanity.

Pope Francis: I believe in Triune God, God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Ghost.  About Jesus I believe in the Council of Chalcedon from 451 CE, which issued the ‘Chalcedonian Definition,’ which repudiated the notion of a single nature in Christ, and declared that he has two natures in one person and hypostasis; it also insisted on the completeness of his two natures: Godhead and manhood.  Jesus is fully divine and a perfect human.

Bartholomew I: I also believe in Triune God, God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Ghost.

I believe Jesus is both 100% God and 100% human, Perfect God (τέλειος Θεός) and Perfect Human (τέλειος άνθρωπος). Throughout the ages this has been a point of contention between Christian break away groups (Heterodox) and the mainstream believers (Orthodox). This means that Christ had a divine will and a human will. He had a human body able to suffer the same way as we would, but at the same time, He was perfectly divine and could not suffer corruption. “That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption.” (Psalm 49:9 KJV) If one thinks the following way about the Dual Natures of Christ (Divine and Human) it will shed some light: When Jesus was in the womb of the Theotokos (the God-Bearer, the Virgin Mary) He was as weak and limited as any other human foetus. Yet, in His Divinity He continued to fill the Universe as the Logos: infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. Yet it is ONE Person existing in two Natures not two Persons and that One Person is Jesus Christ.

Some of the churches closely related to us believe Jesus has only one nature and not two.

The Council of Chalcedon about two natures of Jesus is not accepted by several of the ancient Eastern Churches, including the Oriental Orthodox of Egypt, Syria, Armenia, Eritrea, Ethiopia.

Erdoğan: You both believe in two natures of Jesus, unlike the Oriental Orthodox. Is there any difference in your understanding of Trinity?

Bartholomew I: The Holy Trinity is three, distinct, divine persons (hypostases), without overlap or modality among them, who share one divine essence (ousia Greek ουσία)— uncreated, immaterial and eternal.^[79] These three persons are typically distinguished in by their relation to each other. The Father is eternal and not begotten and does not proceed from any, the Son is eternal and begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is eternal and proceeds from the Father.

The difference being we believe that Holy Spirit is from the Father only and we do not mention Jesus, in the description of the Holy Spirit.

Pope Francis: I agree, a well-known example is the Filioque controversy, the debates centering around whether the Nicene Creed should state that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father” and then have a stop, as the creed was initially adopted in Greek (and followed thereafter by the Eastern Church), or should say “from the Father and the Son” as was later adopted in Latin and followed by the Roman Catholic Church, “filioque” being “and the Son” in Latin.[1]

Erdoğan: I am glad that you have been very candid in your description of Trinity.  Could you explain how the perfect Godhead and perfect manhood coexist, won’t mixing take away from the perfection of both?  For example, if a vulnerable man will have omniscience of God, how would he remain weak and vulnerable and then man is limited in space and God is Omnipresent.  Can you explain?

Pope Francis: This is the problem with you Muslims you want to have a rational faith.  How good a faith is if it is rational?  You have to take the nature of Jesus as a matter of faith.

I am reminded of a quote by Søren Aabye Kierkegaard:

It is not the business of any Christian writer or preacher to dilute Christianity to suit the general educated public. The doctrine of the incarnation was to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, and so will it always be, for the doctrine not only transcends reason; it the paradox par excellence; and it can be affirmed only by faith, with passionate inwardness and interest. The substitution of reason for faith means the death of Christianity.

Bartholomew I: I second that, but, I also wish that we had someone from Oriental Orthodox of Egypt, Syria, Armenia, Eritrea and Ethiopia Churches, who believe in single nature of Jesus.

Erdoğan: OK.  Enough about God, Allah and Trinity.  Let us talk about your respective churches.

Bartholomew I: I consider Jesus Christ to be the head of the Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church to be his body.  Almost from the very beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the “One, Holy, Catholic [from the Greek καθολική, or “according to the whole”] and Apostolic Church”.^[19] The Eastern Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same Church.

 Pope Francis: The Roman Catholic Church teaches that it is the one true church founded by Jesus Christ,[3][4] that its bishops are the successors of Christ’s apostles and that the Pope is the sole successor to Saint Peter, who has primacy among the apostles.[5][6] The Church maintains that the doctrine on faith and morals that it presents as definitive is infallible.[7][8]

Erdoğan: So you both claim that Jesus is on your side and you represent his true teachings.  I understand, similar is the claim of all Muslim sects that they are true representatives of Muhammad’s teachings. Going back to nature of Jesus, how can I politely say it?  You are my guests and I do not want to hurt your feelings.  Islam’s understanding is very simple and logical.  We take Jesus, may peace be on him, as one of the great prophets, like John the Baptist, Solomon, David, Abraham, Noah and Adam before him.

About the Christian understanding of nature of Jesus, let me suggest you three wonderful articles, by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times:

Understanding the Nature of Jesus is Always a Heresy

Is Jesus a Man, a God or a Hybrid?

Two natures of Jesus: another Christian mystery!

Let us talk about some commonalities between our faiths.  We all respect Mother Mary and there is a chapter of the Holy Quran named after her and in the 66th chapter the Quran presents her as a role model for both the Muslim men and women.  Can you please tell me about your views about Mother Mary?

Bartholomew I: I am glad you changed the subject.  I was afraid you will keep dragging the subject of nature of Jesus.

The Council of Ephesus was a council of Christian bishops convened in Ephesus (near present-day Selçuk in Turkey) in AD 431 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius II. This third ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom,^[1] confirmed the original Nicene Creed^[2] , and condemned the teachings of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople that the Virgin Mary may be called the Christotokos, “Birth Giver of Christ” but not the Theotokos, “Birth Giver of God”. It met in June and July 431 at the Church of Mary in Ephesus in Anatolia.

Even though the Council of Ephesus condemned one of our Patriarchs, namely Nestorius, but, we stand by its verdict about Mother Mary.

Pope Francis: We understand Jesus Christ as both fully God and fully human, we call Mother Mary Theotokos (“the one who gives birth to God”) . The Council of Ephesus decreed, in opposition to those who denied Mary the title Theotokos but called her Christotokos (“the one who gives birth to Christ”), that Mary is Theotokos because her son Jesus is one person who is both God and man, divine and human.^[5][6]

Erdoğan: I am sorry, but, I do not understand, how can a lady be mother of God, who is beyond time, space and matter?  I do not understand! I recently read a good article, Mary or Maria: Mother of a Jewish Prophet or Mother of God?

Pope Francis: This Ecumenical meeting is a mistake, would you be kind enough to censure this from the Turkish news media.  Whose idea was it anyways? Enough of theology, let us do some more site seeing.  Let us go to Hagia Sophia.

Erdoğan: I am sorry if I hurt your feelings, we were just chatting.

Yes, let us go to Hagia Sophia and the dinner will be served there and later we can talk politics and economics, I hope both of you will find that discussion more pragmatic and lighthearted.

Follow us in Twitter to stay informed about current affairs, human rights, universal brotherhood, Separation of Mosque-Church and State, and much more