Pope Benedict XVI will visit Lebanon in September to preach peace and unity for Christians in the Middle East, a senior religious figure said today, a day after meeting with the Pontiff.

"The Pope will come to support Christians so that they are united," said Gregory III Laham, the head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, adding that the visit would take place September 14-16, the I.Media religious news agency reported.

Pope Benedict will also bring a message of "peace in the Middle East," where violence has raged in Lebanon's neighbour Syria for a year and efforts to resolve the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict are as mired as ever, he said.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati invited the pontiff to visit in November last year during a visit to the Vatican.

The trip will mark the second to the region for Benedict, who visited Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories in 2009.

Patriarch Gregory, who is headquartered in Damascus, heads the second-largest Catholic community in the Middle East, with some 700,000 followers in Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Sudan and Syria.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.