{"id":8685,"date":"2021-03-06T11:39:11","date_gmt":"2021-03-06T11:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ukrgate.com\/eng\/?p=8685"},"modified":"2021-04-01T11:14:14","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T11:14:14","slug":"a-historic-meeting-between-the-pope-and-the-grand-ayatollah-of-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/?p=8685","title":{"rendered":"A Historic Meeting Between the Pope and the Grand Ayatollah of Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pope Francis on Saturday began a <a href=\"https:\/\/ukrgate.com\/eng\/?p=5651\">historic<\/a> meeting with one of Iraq&#8217;s top Shiite spiritual leaders, Grand <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ali_al-Sistani\">Ayatollah<\/a> Ali Sistani.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>Kiev. Ukraine. Ukraine Gate &#8211; March 06, 2021 \u2013 International News<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Francis&#8217; meeting in the holy city of Iraq, Najaf, during a risky trip to Iraq was the pontiff&#8217;s first meeting with such a high-ranking Shiite cleric.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It is noted that Ali Sistani is one of the most important figures in Shiite Islam both in Iraq and abroad. He has a huge influence on politics. Sistani, 90, is rare in meetings and has refused to <a href=\"https:\/\/ukrgate.com\/eng\/?p=6779\">negotiate<\/a> with current and former Iraqi prime ministers, according to officials close to him. Sistani agreed to meet with the Pope in the absence of Iraqi officials, a source told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The meeting with Francis took place in the modest house of Sistan, where he has lived for decades, located along a narrow alley in Najaf.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Pope Francis arrived in Baghdad on March 5 with the riskiest visit abroad since being elected pope in 2012. The pontiff&#8217;s trip was the first papal visit to Iraq in history. The Pope is due to return to Rome on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Read also:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ukrgate.com\/eng\/?p=7761\">Vladimir Zelensky&#8217;s Visit to the UAE!<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><em>Source: Ukrgate<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pope Francis on Saturday began a historic meeting with one of Iraq&#8217;s top Shiite spiritual leaders, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Kiev. Ukraine. Ukraine Gate &#8211; March 06, 2021 \u2013 International News \u00a0 Francis&#8217; meeting in the holy city of Iraq, Najaf, during a risky trip to Iraq was the pontiff&#8217;s first meeting with such a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[4546,607,4545,735,1330,1854],"class_list":["post-8685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ukraine-news","tag-iraq","tag-meeting","tag-pope","tag-pope-francis","tag-visit","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}