Bartholomew I in Italy: from the Angelicum to Loreto and Assisi, where Pope Leo XIV will not be present
From 23 to 28 October the Ecumenical Patriarch is in Rome, Loreto and Assisi: today an honorary doctorate and the conference "Crete Ten Years After", on the 27th Sant'Egidio's prayer for peace, which Pope Leo XIV will not attend on his doctors' advice
Update. Pope Leo XIV will not be in Assisi on 27 October, the Holy See Press Office said today. A follow-up chest X-ray "confirmed that his postoperative recovery is progressing very well", but "given the short time that has elapsed since the surgery", his doctors advised against the planned helicopter journey "as a precaution". To aid his recovery after the thoracic surgery of 13 October, the Pope will not attend the "Unarmed and Disarming Peace" meeting; he will send a message of closeness to the organisers, to the leaders and representatives of Christian denominations and religions, and to the guests.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople is in Italy from today, Friday 23 October, until Wednesday 28: Rome, Loreto, Assisi and back to Rome. Vatican News calls it "a wide-ranging and intense tour of three cities in three regions" (our translation). The moment that would have most closely involved the Pope was Tuesday 27 in Assisi, at the closing ceremony of the Community of Sant'Egidio's peace meeting: on his doctors' advice, Pope Leo XIV will not be able to attend.
Today at the Angelicum: "Crete Ten Years After". At 10:30, in the Aula Minor of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), Bartholomew I opens with an address the conference "Crete Ten Years After", organised by the Œcumenicum, the university's Institute for Ecumenical Studies, for the tenth anniversary of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, held in Crete in 2016. On the same occasion the Angelicum confers on him an Honorary Doctorate in Theology. Two afternoon sessions follow: on the Council's documents, with Metropolitans Job of Pisidia (Ecumenical Patriarchate) and Petros of Axum (Patriarchate of Alexandria), and on "Ecumenical Horizons and Reception", with Alberto Melloni, Hyacinthe Destivelle, director of the Œcumenicum, and Dimitrios Keramidas.
Monday 26 in Loreto. Vatican News calls the pilgrimage to the Holy House the "central event" of the trip. The Patriarch will venerate the walls of the Holy House and bless a new Byzantine icon of the Mother of God, which will be kept inside it. The Akathist hymn will be sung during a public prayer open to Catholics, Orthodox and Christians of other confessions. Fabio Dal Cin, archbishop and pontifical delegate of Loreto, described the icon as "a sign that recalls the native origin of the Holy House and its ecumenical vocation: the House of all Christians and a spiritual bridge between East and West" (our translation).
Tuesday 27 in Assisi. From 25 to 27 October the Community of Sant'Egidio holds the meeting "Unarmed and Disarming Peace" ("Pace disarmata e disarmante") in Assisi, forty years after the Day of Prayer for Peace called by Pope John Paul II in 1986. Bartholomew I will speak in the final session, on the panel "The Ecumenical Patriarchate: from the East to the global world", and will take part in the closing ceremony, with a Universal Prayer for Peace and a minute of silence for the victims of war. That is where, according to the programme reported by Vatican News, Pope Leo XIV was expected; on his doctors' advice he will not be able to attend and will send a message.
Wednesday 28 at the Oriental Institute. The trip ends in Rome with a lecture in the Aula Magna of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, during an academic ceremony in his honour. For the Patriarch it is a homecoming: from 1963 to 1968, as a deacon, he studied there up to a doctorate in canon law, on a scholarship from Patriarch Athenagoras. The Institute has prepared an exhibition of fifteen panels with documents and photographs from his personal album.
The thread with Pope Leo XIV. Bartholomew I last visited Rome on 18 May 2025, for the Mass inaugurating the pontificate, when he met the Pope privately. Six months later, during his journey to Türkiye and Lebanon, Pope Leo XIV prayed with him and other Christian leaders in İznik, ancient Nicaea, on 28 November 2025, for the 1700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, and on 29 November signed a joint declaration with him.
What we don't know. The programme reported by Vatican News does not include an audience at the Vatican. For Assisi, the Holy See Press Office has announced a message from the Pope to the organisers and participants: its text is not yet known.
Our flash from 22 October:
vaticanreport.com/flash/dede5df7-9ff9-4f3d-a2d9-d987661f74d4?lang=en
Sources: Vatican News, 22 October 2026 (Italian) · Œcumenicum – Angelicum, conference programme · Apostolic Journey to Türkiye and Lebanon, vatican.va
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Source: Vatican News