Pope Francis' meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, one of Shiite Islam's top clerics, on Saturday marked a landmark moment in modern religious history and in terms of the former's efforts to deepen interfaith dialogue.
In the meeting on the second day of the pope's first-ever papal visit to Iraq, Sistani told him that the country's Christians should live in "peace".
Pope Francis' meeting with the grand ayatollah in Najaf lasted 50 minutes, and Sistani's office put out a statement shortly afterwards thanking him for visiting the holy city.