The visit to the sanctuary of Mary in Ephesus and the meeting with the ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in Istanbul in the afternoon: these are the most important appointments that await Benedict XVI today, in this journey through Turkey. At the sanctuary of "Meryem Ana Evi" (House of Mary the Mother, also known as the ‘small house’, which is also visited by Muslims), the Pope will meet the Catholic community and the Bishops, and will celebrate High Mass. There is no certain historical evidence that Mary actually lived in Ephesus in the "Small house" with John the Evangelist, as told by a Syrian tradition of the XIII century. The site was discovered in 1891 by the Lazarist Fathers of Izmir, based on the revelations of the German prophetess Anna Katharina Emmerick (1774-1824). In the afternoon, the Pope will take a flight back to Istanbul, where he is going to meet Bartholomew I, considered "primus inter pares" among the other Orthodox Patriarchs. After the private meeting at the Patriarchate, they will pray together in the Church of Saint George. All will be ended by the veneration of the relics of Saint Gregory the Theologian and Saint John Chrysostom. In Istanbul, the Pope will sleep at "Casa Roncalli", where the then apostolic nuncio Angelo Roncalli, who would become Pope John XXIII, used to live.
