"Love and peace be with you," the Pope said in Turkish

Pope Benedict XVI has begun the religious leg of his four-day visit to Turkey Wednesday by celebrating his first mass on Muslim soil at the Home of the Virgin Mary and making a fresh appeal for peace in the Middle East.

 

"Love and peace be with you," the Pope said in Turkish at the start of the ceremony at the modest hill-top shrine outside the ancient city of Ephesus and about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of the Aegean port of Izmir on Wednesday.

 

On a warm, sunny day, dozens of those among the hand-picked crowd of about 500 faithful saluted the pope waving Vatican and Turkish flags and palm fronds.

 

"From this edge of the Anatolian peninsula, a natural bridge between continents, let us implore peace and reconciliation, above all for those dwelling in the Land called 'Holy' and considered as such by Christians, Jews and Muslims alike," the pope said in his homily.