Pope Benedict XVI made a special trip to Istanbul's Blue Mosque in Turkey on Thursday in a move seen as a conciliatory gesture toward Muslims as part of his visit to the predominantly Islamic country.

On the third of a four-day visit to Turkey, the Pope became the second pope in history to visit a Muslim place of worship.

Mustafa Cagrici, the head cleric of Istanbul, accompanied the pontiff as he toured the 17th century mosque, known as the Blue Mosque because of its famous blue tiles. Before entering the building, Benedict took off his shoes in a show of respect.

The two religious leaders later stood together, shoulder to shoulder, in a moment of quiet meditation.

"This visit will help us find together the way of peace for the good of all humanity," the Pope said during the visit.

CBC's Adrienne Arsenault, reporting from Istanbul, said the image of the two men representing two very different faiths but sharing a moment of individual prayer was seen as highly significant.

"It really was considered here as a striking, symbolic moment," she said. "I think it was at that point when people started to realize that he may not have said the words, 'I'm sorry,' but the interpretation here was that he indeed went some way to offer an apology of sorts for the words he uttered in September about Islam."

Pope Benedict, second from right, and Istanbul's Mufti Mustafa Cagrici, right, pause during their visit inside the Blue Mosque in Istanbul on Thursday.
(Salih Zeki Fazlioglu/Associated Press)

The Pope sparked controversy two months ago when he quoted a text by a 14th-century Christian emperor, who described the Prophet Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman." Vatican officials said the Pope was trying to point out that faith is incompatible with violence, and he later expressed regret for stoking Muslim anger.

Arsenault said the Pope has been well-received in the Turkish media while he visits important religious sites. Commentators have said the visit will help to create a new understanding between Christians and Muslims.

"They are falling all over themselves in the Turkish media, many of them anyway, to say that this trip went infinitely better than they thought it would. The tone here is actually quite positive at this point," she said.

Pope Benedict, left, and Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew wave from a balcony of the patriarchate in Istanbul on Thursday.
(Kerim Okten/Associated Press)

"We'll see if, in the next day or two, if second thoughts emerge, but at this point, they do seem to be believing that it went better than anyone could have anticipated."

The mosque, which was surrounded by police amid tight security for the Pope, is officially known as the Sultan Ahmet Mosque. It is named after the Ottoman sultan, Ahmet I, who was responsible for its construction.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said last week that the Vatican included a visit to the mosque on the pontiff's itinerary as a "sign of respect" to Muslims.

Earlier Thursday, the Pope toured the Hagia Sophia, a 1,500-year-old museum in Istanbul, in a stop that was considered to be the most closely watched of his trip.

The museum is of religious importance to Turkey because it was first a Byzantine church, completed in 537, and became a mosque in the 1400s after Muslims conquered Constantinople, which later came to be Istanbul. In the 1930s, then president Kemal Ataturk converted the building into a museum.

Arsenault said any religious gestures by the Pope at the site, such as praying or making the sign of the cross, would have been seen as offensive by some Muslims.

The museum was surrounded by thousands of police officers, with entire streets blocked off in a bid to prevent any disruption of the visit, Arsenault said.

Ecumenical meeting

Also on Thursday, the Pope held a prayer service with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians.

After praying together, the Pope said the two leaders would try to mend a rift that has existed for nearly 1,000 years between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches. 

"The divisions which exist among Christians are a scandal to the world and an obstacle to the proclamation of the gospel," Pope Benedict was quoted by Reuters as saying in his homily at the service in St. George Church.

The Pope and the patriarch represent two branches of Christianity that went their separate ways in 1054 because of differences in opinion on the role of the papacy.

Arsenault said attempts to heal that rift appear to be successful. The patriarch was the first person to invite the Pope to Turkey.

The Pope's visit to Turkey — his first trip to a Muslim country since becoming leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics in 2005 — was called one of the riskiest foreign ventures in the modern papacy.

It was also hailed as an attempt to heal the divide between the Christian and Muslim worlds, though his remarks about Islam continue to draw ire in Turkey. There have been a few isolated protests during the Pope's visit.

On Wednesday, Pope Benedict reached out to the tiny Roman Catholic minority in Turkey by celebrating mass next to a stone house that is believed to be the place where the Virgin Mary spent the final years of her life. The shrine is in the town of Ephesus in western Turkey.

The pontiff also paid tribute to a Roman Catholic priest who was killed during Muslim reaction to the publication in Denmark of caricatures of Muhammad.

Turkey has an estimated 65,000 Armenian Orthodox Christians, 20,000 Roman Catholics, 3,500 Protestants, 2,000 Greek Orthodox and 23,000 Jews. The Christian minority has said it believes it is discriminated against by the Muslim majority of 72 million.

With files from the Associated Press