Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in April 2005, and was later canonised as Pope Saint John Paul II.

He was elected pope by the second papal conclave of 1978, which was called after John Paul I, who had been elected in August to succeed Pope Paul VI, died after 33 days. Cardinal Wojtyła was elected on the third day of the conclave and adopted the name of his predecessor in tribute to him. Born in Poland, John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI in the 16th century and the second-longest-serving pope after Pius IX in modern history.

John Paul II attempted to improve the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. He maintained the church's previous positions on such matters as abortion, artificial contraception, the ordination of women, and a celibate clergy, and although he supported the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, he was seen as generally conservative in their interpretation. He was one of the most travelled world leaders in history, visiting 129 countries during his pontificate. As part of his special emphasis on the universal call to holiness, he beatified 1,344 and canonised 483 people, more than the combined tally of his predecessors during the preceding five centuries. By the time of his death, he had named most of the College of Cardinals, consecrated or co-consecrated many of the world's bishops, and ordained many priests. He has also been credited with helping to end Communist rule in his native Poland as well as the rest of Europe.

John Paul II's cause for canonisation commenced one month after his death with the traditional five-year waiting period waived. On 19 December 2009, John Paul II was proclaimed venerable by his successor, Benedict XVI, and was beatified on 1 May 2011 ( Divine Mercy Sunday) after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints attributed one miracle to his intercession, the healing of a French nun called Marie Simon Pierre from Parkinson's disease. A second miracle was approved on 2 July 2013, and confirmed by Pope Francis two days later. John Paul II was canonised on 27 April 2014 (again Divine Mercy Sunday), together with John XXIII. On 11 September 2014, Pope Francis added these two optional memorials to the worldwide General Roman Calendar of saints. It is traditional to celebrate saints' feast days on the anniversary of their deaths, but that of John Paul II (22 October) is celebrated on the anniversary of his papal inauguration. Posthumously, he has been referred to by some Catholics as "Pope St. John Paul the Great", although the title has no official recognition.

Early life

Karol Józef Wojtyła was born in the Polish town of Wadowice. He was the youngest of three children born to Karol Wojtyła (1879–1941), an ethnic Pole, and Emilia Kaczorowska (1884–1929), who was of distant Lithuanian heritage. Emilia, who was a schoolteacher, died from a heart attack and kidney failure in 1929 when Wojtyła was eight years old. His elder sister Olga had died before his birth, but he was close to his brother Edmund, nicknamed Mundek, who was 13 years his senior. Edmund's work as a physician eventually led to his death from scarlet fever, a loss that affected Wojtyła deeply.

Wojtyła was baptized a month after his birth, made his First Communion at the age of 9, and was confirmed at the age of 18. As a boy, Wojtyła was athletic, often playing football as goalkeeper. During his childhood, Wojtyła had contact with the large Jewish community of Wadowice. School football games were often organised between teams of Jews and Catholics, and Wojtyła often played on the Jewish side. "I remember that at least a third of my classmates at elementary school in Wadowice were Jews. At secondary school there were fewer. With some I was on very friendly terms. And what struck me about some of them was their Polish patriotism." It was around this time that the young Karol had his first serious relationship with a girl. He became close to a girl called Ginka Beer, described as "a Jewish beauty, with stupendous eyes and jet black hair, slender, a superb actress."

In mid-1938, Wojtyła and his father left Wadowice and moved to Kraków, where he enrolled at the Jagiellonian University. While studying such topics as philology and various languages, he worked as a volunteer librarian and though required to participate in compulsory military training in the Academic Legion, he refused to fire a weapon. He performed with various theatrical groups and worked as a playwright. During this time, his talent for language blossomed, and he learned as many as 15 languages — Polish, Latin, Italian, English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Luxembourgish, Dutch, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Slovak and Esperanto, nine of which he used extensively as pope.

In 1939, after invading Poland, the Nazi German occupation forces closed the university. Able-bodied males were required to work, so from 1940 to 1944 Wojtyła variously worked as a messenger for a restaurant, a manual labourer in a limestone quarry and for the Solvay chemical factory, in order to avoid deportation to Germany. In February 1940, he met Jan Tyranowski who introduced him to the Carmelite spirituality and the "Living Rosary" youth groups. In that same year he had two major accidents, suffering a fractured skull after being struck by a tram and sustaining injuries which left him with one shoulder higher than the other and a permanent stoop after being hit by a lorry in a quarry. His father, a former Austro-Hungarian non-commissioned officer and later officer in the Polish Army, died of a heart attack in 1941, leaving Wojtyła as the immediate family's only surviving member. "I was not at my mother's death, I was not at my brother's death, I was not at my father's death," he said, reflecting on these times of his life, nearly forty years later, "At twenty, I had already lost all the people I loved."

After his father's death, he started thinking seriously about the priesthood. In October 1942, while the war continued, he knocked on the door of the Archbishop's residence in Kraków and asked to study for the priesthood. Soon after, he began courses in the clandestine underground seminary run by the Archbishop of Kraków, Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha. On 29 February 1944, Wojtyła was hit by a German truck. German Wehrmacht officers tended to him and sent him to a hospital. He spent two weeks there recovering from a severe concussion and a shoulder injury. It seemed to him that this accident and his survival was a confirmation of his vocation. On 6 August 1944, a day known as "Black Sunday", the Gestapo rounded up young men in Kraków to curtail the uprising there, similar to the recent uprising in Warsaw. Wojtyła escaped by hiding in the basement of his uncle's house at 10 Tyniecka Street, while the German troops searched above. More than eight thousand men and boys were taken that day, while Wojtyła escaped to the Archbishop's residence, where he remained until after the Germans had left.

On the night of 17 January 1945, the Germans fled the city, and the students reclaimed the ruined seminary. Wojtyła and another seminarian volunteered for the task of clearing away piles of frozen excrement from the toilets. Wojtyła also helped a 14-year-old Jewish refugee girl named Edith Zierer, who had escaped from a Nazi labour camp in Częstochowa. Edith had collapsed on a railway platform, so Wojtyła carried her to a train and stayed with her throughout the journey to Kraków. She later credited Wojtyła with saving her life that day. B'nai B'rith and other authorities have said that Wojtyła helped protect many other Polish Jews from the Nazis. During the Nazi occupation of Poland, a Jewish family sent their son, Stanley Berger, to be hidden by a Gentile Polish family. Berger's biological Jewish parents were killed in the Holocaust, and after the war Berger's new Christian parents asked Karol Wojtyła to baptise the boy. Wojtyła refused, saying that the child should be raised in the Jewish faith of his birth parents and nation, not as a Catholic. He did everything he could to ensure that Berger leave Poland to be raised by his Jewish relatives in the United States. In April 2005, shortly after John Paul II's death, the Israeli government created a commission to honour the legacy of John Paul II. One of the honorifics proposed by a head of Italy's Jewish community, Emmanuele Pacifici was the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations. In Wojtyła's last book, '' Memory and Identity'', he described the 12 years of the Nazi régime as " bestiality", quoting from the Polish theologian and philosopher Konstanty Michalski.

Priesthood

After finishing his studies at the seminary in Kraków, Wojtyła was ordained as a priest on All Saints' Day, 1 November 1946, by the archbishop of Kraków, cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha. Sapieha sent Wojtyła to Rome's Pontifical International Athenaeum ''Angelicum'', the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, to study under the French Dominican friar Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange beginning on 26 November 1946. He resided in the Belgian Pontifical College during this time, under rectorship of Maximilien de Furstenberg. Wojtyła earned a licence in July 1947, passed his doctoral exam on 14 June 1948, and successfully defended his doctoral thesis titled ''Doctrina de fide apud S. Ioannem a Cruce'' (The Doctrine of Faith in St. John of the Cross) in philosophy on 19 June 1948. The ''Angelicum'' preserves the original copy of Wojtyła's typewritten thesis. Among other courses at the ''Angelicum'', Wojtyła studied Hebrew with the Dutch Dominican Peter G. Duncker, author of the ''Compendium grammaticae linguae hebraicae biblicae''.

According to Wojtyła's fellow student, the future Austrian cardinal Alfons Stickler, in 1947 during his sojourn at the '' Angelicum'', Wojtyła visited Padre Pio, who heard his confession and told him that one day he would ascend to "the highest post in the Church". Stickler added that Wojtyła believed that the prophecy was fulfilled when he became a cardinal.

Wojtyła returned to Poland in the summer of 1948 for his first pastoral assignment in the village of Niegowić, from Kraków, at the Church of the Assumption. He arrived at Niegowić at harvest time, where his first action was to kneel and kiss the ground. He repeated this gesture, which he adopted from Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, throughout his papacy.

In March 1949, Wojtyła was transferred to the parish of Saint Florian in Kraków. He taught ethics at Jagiellonian University and subsequently at the Catholic University of Lublin. While teaching, he gathered a group of about 20 young people, who began to call themselves ''Rodzinka'', the "little family". They met for prayer, philosophical discussion, and to help the blind and the sick. The group eventually grew to approximately 200 participants, and their activities expanded to include annual skiing and kayaking trips.

In 1953, Wojtyła's habilitation thesis was accepted by the Faculty of Theology at the Jagiellonian University. In 1954, he earned a Doctorate in Sacred Theology, evaluating the feasibility of a Catholic ethic based on the ethical system of the phenomenologist Max Scheler with a dissertation titled "Reevaluation of the possibility of founding a Catholic ethic on the ethical system of Max Scheler" ( pl, Ocena możliwości zbudowania etyki chrześcijańskiej przy założeniach systemu Maksa Schelera). Scheler was a German philosopher who founded a broad philosophical movement that emphasised the study of conscious experience. However, the Communist authorities abolished the Faculty of Theology at the Jagellonian University, thereby preventing him from receiving the degree until 1957. Wojtyła developed a theological approach, called phenomenological Thomism, that combined traditional Catholic Thomism with the ideas of personalism, a philosophical approach deriving from phenomenology, which was popular among Catholic intellectuals in Kraków during Wojtyła's intellectual development. He translated Scheler's ''Formalism and the Ethics of Substantive Values''. In 1961, he coined "Thomistic Personalism" to describe Aquinas's philosophy.

During this period, Wojtyła wrote a series of articles in Kraków's Catholic newspaper, '' Tygodnik Powszechny'' ("''Universal Weekly''"), dealing with contemporary church issues. He focused on creating original literary work during his first dozen years as a priest. War, life under Communism, and his pastoral responsibilities all fed his poetry and plays. Wojtyła published his work under two pseudonyms—''Andrzej Jawień'' and ''Stanisław Andrzej Gruda''—to distinguish his literary from his religious writings (issued under his own name), and also so that his literary works would be considered on their own merits. In 1960, Wojtyła published the influential theological book '' Love and Responsibility'', a defence of traditional church teachings on marriage from a new philosophical standpoint.

While a priest in Kraków, groups of students regularly joined Wojtyła for hiking, skiing, bicycling, camping and kayaking, accompanied by prayer, outdoor Masses and theological discussions. In Stalinist-era Poland, it was not permitted for priests to travel with groups of students. Wojtyła asked his younger companions to call him "Wujek" (Polish for "Uncle") to prevent outsiders from deducing he was a priest. The nickname gained popularity among his followers. In 1958, when Wojtyła was named auxiliary bishop of Kraków, his acquaintances expressed concern that this would cause him to change. Wojtyła responded to his friends, "Wujek will remain Wujek," and he continued to live a simple life, shunning the trappings that came with his position as bishop. This beloved nickname stayed with Wojtyła for his entire life and continues to be affectionately used, particularly by the Polish people.

Episcopate and cardinalate

Call to the episcopate

On 4 July 1958, while Wojtyła was on a kayaking holiday in the lakes region of northern Poland, Pope Pius XII appointed him as an auxiliary bishop of Kraków. He was consequently summoned to Warsaw to meet the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, who informed him of his appointment. Wojtyła accepted the appointment as auxiliary bishop to Kraków's Archbishop Eugeniusz Baziak, and he received episcopal consecration (as titular bishop of Ombi) on 28 September 1958, with Baziak as the principal consecrator and as co-consecrators Bishop Bolesław Kominek (titular bishop of Sophene and Vågå, auxiliary of the Catholic Archdiocese of Wrocław, and Franciszek Jop, Auxiliary Bishop of Sandomierz (Titular Bishop of Daulia. Kominek was to become Cardinal Archbishop of Wrocław) and Jop was later Auxiliary Bishop of Wrocław and then Bishop of Opole). At the age of 38, Wojtyła became the youngest bishop in Poland.

In 1959, Wojtyła began an annual tradition of saying a Midnight Mass on Christmas Day in an open field at Nowa Huta, the so-called model workers' town outside Kraków that was without a church building. Baziak died in June 1962 and on 16 July, Wojtyła was selected as ''Vicar Capitular'' ''(temporary administrator)'' of the Archdiocese until an archbishop could be appointed.

Participation in Vatican II and subsequent events

From October 1962, Wojtyła took part in the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), where he made contributions to two of its most historic and influential products, the ''Decree on Religious Freedom'' (in Latin, '' Dignitatis humanae'') and the ''Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World'' ('' Gaudium et spes''). Wojtyła and the Polish bishops contributed a draft text to the Council for ''Gaudium et spes''. According to the Jesuit historian John W. O'Malley, the draft text ''Gaudium et spes'' that Wojtyła and the Polish delegation sent "had some influence on the version that was sent to the council fathers that summer but was not accepted as the base text". According to John F. Crosby, as pope, John Paul II used the words of ''Gaudium et spes'' later to introduce his own views on the nature of the human person in relation to God: man is "the only creature on earth that God has wanted for its own sake", but man "can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself".

He also participated in the assemblies of the Synod of Bishops. On 13 January 1964, Pope Paul VI appointed him Archbishop of Kraków. On 26 June 1967, Paul VI announced Wojtyła's promotion to the College of Cardinals. Wojtyła was named cardinal priest of the titulus of San Cesareo in Palatio.

In 1967, he was instrumental in formulating the encyclical '' Humanae vitae'', which dealt with the same issues that forbid abortion and artificial birth control.

According to a contemporary witness, Wojtyła was against the distribution of a letter around Kraków in 1970, stating that the Polish Episcopate was preparing for the 50th anniversary of the Polish–Soviet War.

In 1973, Wojtyła met philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, the wife of Hendrik S. Houthakker, professor of economics at Stanford University and Harvard University, and member of President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisers Tymieniecka collaborated with Wojtyła on a number of projects including an English translation of Wojtyła's book ''Osoba i czyn'' (''Person and Act''). ''Person and Act'', one of John Paul II's foremost literary works, was initially written in Polish. Tymieniecka produced the English-language version. They corresponded over the years, and grew to be good friends. When Wojtyła visited New England in the summer of 1976, Tymieniecka put him up as a guest in her family home. Wojtyła enjoyed his holiday in Pomfret, Vermont kayaking and enjoying the outdoors, as he had done in his beloved Poland.

During 1974–1975, Wojtyła served Pope Paul VI as consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Laity, as recording secretary for the 1974 synod on evangelism and by participating extensively in the original drafting of the 1975 apostolic exhortation, '' Evangelii nuntiandi''.

Papacy

Election

In August 1978, following the death of Pope Paul VI, Wojtyła voted in the papal conclave, which elected John Paul I. John Paul I died after only 33 days as pope, triggering another conclave.

The second conclave of 1978 started on 14 October, ten days after the funeral. It was split between two strong candidates for the papacy: Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, the conservative Archbishop of Genoa, and the liberal Archbishop of Florence, Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, a close friend of John Paul I.

Supporters of Benelli were confident that he would be elected, and in early ballots, Benelli came within nine votes of success. However, both men faced sufficient opposition for neither to be likely to prevail. Giovanni Colombo, the Archbishop of Milan, was considered as a compromise candidate among the Italian cardinal-electors, but when he started to receive votes, he announced that, if elected, he would decline to accept the papacy. Cardinal Franz König, Archbishop of Vienna, suggested Wojtyła as another compromise candidate to his fellow electors. Wojtyła won on the eighth ballot on the third day (16 October)—coincidentally the day that the American evangelical preacher Billy Graham had just concluded a 10-day pilgrimage to Poland—with, according to the Italian press, 99 votes from the 111 participating electors.

Among those cardinals who rallied behind Wojtyła were supporters of Giuseppe Siri, Stefan Wyszyński, most of the American cardinals (led by John Krol), and other moderate cardinals. He accepted his election with the words: "With obedience in faith to Christ, my Lord, and with trust in the Mother of Christ and the Church, in spite of great difficulties, I accept". The pope, in tribute to his immediate predecessor, then took the regnal name of ''John Paul II'', also in honor of the late Pope Paul VI, and the traditional white smoke informed the crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square that a pope had been chosen. There had been rumors that the new pope wished to be known as ''Pope Stanislaus'' in honor of the Polish saint of the name, but was convinced by the cardinals that it was not a Roman name. When the new pontiff appeared on the balcony, he broke tradition by addressing the gathered crowd:

Dear brothers and sisters, we are saddened at the death of our beloved Pope John Paul I, and so the cardinals have called for a new bishop of Rome. They called him from a faraway land—far and yet always close because of our communion in faith and Christian traditions. I was afraid to accept that responsibility, yet I do so in a spirit of obedience to the Lord and total faithfulness to Mary, our most Holy Mother. I am speaking to you in your—no, our Italian language. If I make a mistake, please me .... '' eliberately mispronouncing the word 'correct''

Wojtyła became the 264th pope according to the chronological list of popes, the first non-Italian in 455 years. At only 58 years of age, he was the youngest pope since Pope Pius IX in 1846, who was 54. Like his predecessor, John Paul II dispensed with the traditional papal coronation and instead received ecclesiastical investiture with a simplified papal inauguration on 22 October 1978. During his inauguration, when the cardinals were to kneel before him to take their vows and kiss his ring, he stood up as the Polish prelate, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński knelt down, stopped him from kissing the ring, and simply embraced him.

Pastoral journeys

During his pontificate, John Paul II made journeys to 129 countries, travelling more than while doing so. He consistently attracted large crowds, some among the largest ever assembled in human history, such as the Manila World Youth Day, which gathered up to four million people, the largest papal gathering ever, according to the Vatican. John Paul II's earliest official visits were to the Dominican Republic and Mexico in January 1979.
While some of his journeys (such as to the United States and the Holy Land) were to places previously visited by Pope Paul VI, John Paul II became the first pope to visit the White House in October 1979, where he was greeted warmly by President Jimmy Carter. He was the first pope ever to visit several countries in one year, starting in 1979 with Mexico and Ireland. He was the first reigning pope to travel to the United Kingdom, in 1982, where he met Queen Elizabeth II, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. While in Britain he also visited Canterbury Cathedral and knelt in prayer with Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at the spot where Thomas Becket had been killed, as well as holding several large-scale open air masses, including one at Wembley Stadium, which was attended by some 80,000 people.

He travelled to Haiti in 1983, where he spoke in Creole to thousands of impoverished Catholics gathered to greet him at the airport. His message, "things must change in Haiti," referring to the disparity between the wealthy and the poor, was met with thunderous applause. In 2000, he was the first modern pope to visit Egypt, where he met with the Coptic pope, Pope Shenouda III and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria. He was the first Catholic pope to visit and pray in an Islamic mosque, in Damascus, Syria, in 2001. He visited the Umayyad Mosque, a former Christian church where John the Baptist is believed to be interred, where he made a speech calling for Muslims, Christians and Jews to live together.

On 15 January 1995, during the X World Youth Day, he offered Mass to an estimated crowd of between five and seven million in Luneta Park, Manila, Philippines, which was considered to be the largest single gathering in Christian history. In March 2000, while visiting Jerusalem, John Paul became the first pope in history to visit and pray at the Western Wall. In September 2001, amid post-11 September concerns, he travelled to Kazakhstan, with an audience largely consisting of Muslims, and to Armenia, to participate in the celebration of 1,700 years of Armenian Christianity.

In June 1979, John Paul II travelled to Poland, where ecstatic crowds constantly surrounded him. This first papal trip to Poland uplifted the nation's spirit and sparked the formation of the Solidarity movement in 1980, which later brought freedom and human rights to his troubled homeland. Poland's Communist leaders intended to use the pope's visit to show the people that although the pope was Polish it did not alter their capacity to govern, oppress, and distribute the goods of society. They also hoped that if the pope abided by the rules they set, that the Polish people would see his example and follow them as well. If the pope's visit inspired a riot, the Communist leaders of Poland were prepared to crush the uprising and blame the suffering on the pope.Angelo M. Codevilla, "Political Warfare: A Set of Means for Achieving Political Ends", in Waller, ed., ''Strategic Influence: Public Diplomacy, Counterpropaganda and Political Warfare'' (IWP Press, 2008.)

When Pope John Paul II kissed the ground at the Warsaw airport he began the process by which Communism in Poland — and ultimately elsewhere in Europe — would come to an end.

On later trips to Poland, he gave tacit support to the Solidarity organisation. These visits reinforced this message and contributed to the collapse of East European Communism that took place between 1989/1990 with the reintroduction of democracy in Poland, and which then spread through Eastern Europe (1990–1991) and South-Eastern Europe (1990–1992).

World Youth Days

As an extension of his successful work with youth as a young priest, John Paul II pioneered the international World Youth Days. John Paul II presided over nine of them: Rome (1985 and 2000), Buenos Aires (1987), Santiago de Compostela (1989), Częstochowa (1991), Denver (1993), Manila (1995), Paris (1997), and Toronto (2002). Total attendance at these signature events of the pontificate was in the tens of millions.Weigel, George. The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II – The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy . The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Dedicated Years

Keenly aware of the rhythms of time and the importance of anniversaries in the Catholic Church's life, John Paul II led nine "dedicated years" during the twenty-six and a half years of his pontificate: the Holy Year of the Redemption in 1983–84, the Marian Year in 1987–88, the Year of the Family in 1993–94, the three Trinitarian years of preparation for the Great Jubilee of 2000, the Great Jubilee itself, the Year of the Rosary in 2002–3, and the Year of the Eucharist, which began on 17 October 2004, and concluded six months after the Pope's death.

Great Jubilee of 2000

The Great Jubilee of 2000 was a call to the church to become more aware and to embrace her missionary task for the work of evangelization.

From the beginning of my Pontificate, my thoughts had been on this Holy Year 2000 as an important appointment. I thought of its celebration as a providential opportunity during which the Church, thirty-five years after the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, would examine how far she had renewed herself, in order to be able to take up her evangelising mission with fresh enthusiasm.

John Paul II also made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land for the Great Jubilee of 2000. During his visit to the Holy Land, John Paul II visited many sites of the Rosary, including the following locations: Bethany Beyond the Jordan (Al-Maghtas), at the Jordan River, where John the Baptist baptized Jesus; Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity in the town of Bethlehem, the location of Jesus' birth; and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the site of Jesus' burial and resurrection.

Teachings

As pope, John Paul II wrote 14 papal encyclicals and taught about sexuality in what is referred as the " Theology of the Body". Some key elements of his strategy to "reposition the Catholic Church" were encyclicals such as ''Ecclesia de Eucharistia'', ''Reconciliatio et paenitentia'' and '' Redemptoris Mater''. In his ''At the beginning of the new millennium'' ('' Novo Millennio Ineunte''), he emphasised the importance of "starting afresh from Christ": "No, we shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person." In ''The Splendour of the Truth'' ('' Veritatis Splendor''), he emphasised the dependence of man on God and His Law ("Without the Creator, the creature disappears") and the "dependence of freedom on the truth". He warned that man "giving himself over to relativism and scepticism, goes off in search of an illusory freedom apart from truth itself". In '' Fides et Ratio'' (''On the Relationship between Faith and Reason'') John Paul promoted a renewed interest in philosophy and an autonomous pursuit of truth in theological matters. Drawing on many different sources (such as Thomism), he described the mutually supporting relationship between faith and reason, and emphasised that theologians should focus on that relationship. John Paul II wrote extensively about workers and the social doctrine of the church, which he discussed in three encyclicals: '' Laborem exercens'', '' Sollicitudo rei socialis'', and '' Centesimus annus''. Through his encyclicals and many Apostolic Letters and Exhortations, John Paul II talked about the dignity and the equality of women. He argued for the importance of the family for the future of humanity. Other encyclicals include ''The Gospel of Life'' ('' Evangelium Vitae'') and ''Ut Unum Sint'' (''That They May Be One''). Though critics accused him of inflexibility in explicitly re-asserting Catholic moral teachings against abortion and euthanasia that have been in place for well over a thousand years, he urged a more nuanced view of capital punishment. In his second encyclical '' Dives in misericordia'' he stressed that divine mercy is the greatest feature of God, needed especially in modern times.

Social and political stances

John Paul II was considered a conservative on doctrine and issues relating to human sexual reproduction and the ordination of women.

While he was visiting the United States in 1977, the year before becoming pope, Wojtyła said: "All human life, from the moments of conception and through all subsequent stages, is sacred."

A series of 129 lectures given by John Paul II during his Wednesday audiences in Rome between September 1979 and November 1984 were later compiled and published as a single work titled '' Theology of the Body'', an extended meditation on human sexuality. He extended it to the condemnation of abortion, euthanasia and virtually all capital punishment, calling them all a part of a struggle between a " culture of life" and a "culture of death". He campaigned for world debt forgiveness and social justice. He coined the term " social mortgage", which related that all private property had a social dimension, namely, that "the goods of this are originally meant for all." In 2000, he publicly endorsed the Jubilee 2000 campaign on African debt relief fronted by Irish rock stars Bob Geldof and Bono, once famously interrupting a U2 recording session by telephoning the studio and asking to speak to Bono.

John Paul II, who was present and very influential at the 1962–65 Second Vatican Council, affirmed the teachings of that Council and did much to implement them. Nevertheless, his critics often wished that he would embrace the so-called "progressive" agenda that some hoped would evolve as a result of the Council. In fact, the Council did not advocate "progressive" changes in these areas; for example, they still condemned abortion as an unspeakable crime. John Paul II continued to declare that contraception, abortion, and homosexual acts were gravely sinful, and, with Joseph Ratzinger (future Pope Benedict XVI), opposed liberation theology.

Following the church's exaltation of the marital act of sexual intercourse between a baptised man and woman within sacramental marriage as proper and exclusive to the sacrament of marriage, John Paul II believed that it was, in every instance, profaned by contraception, abortion, divorce followed by a 'second' marriage, and by homosexual acts. In 1994, John Paul II asserted the church's lack of authority to ordain women to the priesthood, stating that without such authority ordination is not legitimately compatible with fidelity to Christ. This was also deemed a repudiation of calls to break with the constant tradition of the church by ordaining women to the priesthood. In addition, John Paul II chose not to end the discipline of mandatory priestly celibacy, although in a small number of unusual circumstances, he did allow certain married clergymen of other Christian traditions who later became Catholic to be ordained as Catholic priests.

Apartheid in South Africa

John Paul II was an outspoken opponent of apartheid in South Africa. In 1985, while visiting the Netherlands, he gave an impassioned speech condemning apartheid at the International Court of Justice, proclaiming that "No system of apartheid or separate development will ever be acceptable as a model for the relations between peoples or races." In September 1988, John Paul II made a pilgrimage to ten Southern African countries, including those bordering South Africa, while demonstratively avoiding South Africa. During his visit to Zimbabwe, John Paul II called for economic sanctions against South Africa's government. After John Paul II's death, both Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu praised the pope for defending human rights and condemning economic injustice.

Capital punishment

John Paul II was an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, although previous popes had accepted the practice. At a papal mass in St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States he said:

A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.

During that visit, John Paul II convinced the then governor of Missouri, Mel Carnahan, to reduce the death sentence of convicted murderer Darrell J. Mease to life imprisonment without parole. John Paul II's other attempts to reduce the sentence of death-row inmates were unsuccessful. In 1983, John Paul II visited Guatemala and unsuccessfully asked the country's president, Efraín Ríos Montt, to reduce the sentence for six left-wing guerrillas sentenced to death.

In 2002, John Paul II again travelled to Guatemala. At that time, Guatemala was one of only two countries in Latin America (the other being Cuba) to apply capital punishment. John Paul II asked the Guatemalan president, Alfonso Portillo, for a moratorium on executions.

European Union

John Paul II pushed for a reference to Europe's Christian cultural roots in the draft of the European Constitution. In his 2003 apostolic exhortation '' Ecclesia in Europa'', John Paul II wrote that he "fully (respected) the secular nature of (European) institutions". However, he wanted the EU Constitution to enshrine religious rights, including acknowledging the rights of religious groups to organise freely, recognise the specific identity of each denomination and allow for a "structured dialogue" between each religious community and the EU, and extend across the European Union the legal status enjoyed by religious institutions in individual member states. "I wish once more to appeal to those drawing up the future European Constitutional Treaty so that it will include a reference to the religion and in particular to the Christian heritage of Europe," John Paul II said. The pope's desire for a reference to Europe's Christian identity in the Constitution was supported by non-Catholic representatives of the Church of England and Eastern Orthodox Churches from Russia, Romania, and Greece. John Paul II's demand to include a reference to Europe's Christian roots in the European Constitution was supported by some non-Christians, such as Joseph Weiler, a practising Orthodox Jew and renowned constitutional lawyer, who said that the Constitution's lack of a reference to Christianity was not a "demonstration of neutrality," but, rather, "a Jacobin attitude".

At the same time, however, John Paul II was an enthusiastic supporter of European integration; in particular, he supported his native Poland's entry into the bloc. On 19 May 2003, three weeks before a referendum was held in Poland on EU membership, the Polish pope addressed his compatriots and urged them to vote for Poland's EU membership at St. Peter's Square in Vatican City State. While some conservative, Catholic politicians in Poland opposed EU membership, John Paul II said:

I know that there are many in opposition to integration. I appreciate their concern about maintaining the cultural and religious identity of our nation. However, I must emphasise that Poland has always been an important part of Europe. Europe needs Poland. The Church in Europe needs the Poles' testimony of faith. Poland needs Europe.

The Polish pope compared Poland's entry into the EU to the Union of Lublin, which was signed in 1569 and united the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into one nation and created an elective monarchy.

Evolution

On 22 October 1996, in a speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences plenary session at the Vatican, John Paul II said of evolution that "this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favour of this theory." John Paul II's embrace of evolution was enthusiastically praised by American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, with whom he had an audience in 1984.

Although generally accepting the theory of evolution, John Paul II made one major exception—the human soul. "If the human body has its origin in living material which pre-exists it, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God."

Iraq War

In 2003 John Paul II criticised the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, saying in his State of the World address "No to war! War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity." He sent Pio Cardinal Laghi, the former Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to the United States, to talk with George W. Bush, the US president, to express opposition to the war. John Paul II said that it was up to the United Nations to solve the international conflict through diplomacy and that a unilateral aggression is a crime against peace and a violation of international law. The pope's opposition to the Iraq War led to him being a candidate to win the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, which was ultimately awarded to Iranian attorney/judge and noted human rights advocate, Shirin Ebadi.

Liberation theology

In 1984 and 1986, through Cardinal Ratzinger (future Pope Benedict XVI) as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, John Paul II officially condemned aspects of liberation theology, which had many followers in Latin America.

Visiting Europe, Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero unsuccessfully advocated for the Vatican to condemn the right-wing military regime of El Salvador, for violations of human rights during the Salvadoran Civil War and the support of death squads. Though Romero expressed his frustration at working with clergy who cooperated with the government, John Paul II encouraged him to maintain episcopal unity as a top priority.

In his travel to Managua, Nicaragua in 1983, John Paul II harshly condemned what he dubbed the "popular Church" (i.e. " ecclesial base communities" supported by the CELAM), and the Nicaraguan clergy's tendencies to support the leftist Sandinistas, reminding the clergy of their duties of obedience to the Holy See. During that visit Ernesto Cardenal, a priest and minister in the Sandinista government, knelt to kiss his hand. John Paul withdrew it, wagged his finger in Cardenal's face, and told him, "You must straighten out your position with the church."

Organised crime

John Paul II was the first pontiff to denounce Mafia violence in Southern Italy. In 1993, during a pilgrimage to Agrigento, Sicily, he appealed to the Mafiosi: "I say to those responsible: 'Convert! One day, the judgment of God will arrive!'" In 1994, John Paul II visited Catania and told victims of Mafia violence to "rise up and cloak yourself in light and justice!"

In 1995, the Mafia bombed two historical churches in Rome. Some believed that this was the mob's vendetta against the pope for his denunciations of organised crime.

Persian Gulf War

Between 1990 and 1991, a 34-nation coalition led by the United States waged a war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which had invaded and annexed Kuwait. John Paul II was a staunch opponent of the Gulf War. Throughout the conflict, he appealed to the international community to stop the war, and after it was over led diplomatic initiatives to negotiate peace in the Middle East. In his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, John Paul II harshly condemned the conflict:

No, never again war, which destroys the lives of innocent people, teaches how to kill, throws into upheaval even the lives of those who do the killing and leaves behind a trail of resentment and hatred, thus making it all the more difficult to find a just solution of the very problems which provoked the war.

In April 1991, during his '' Urbi et Orbi'' Sunday message at St. Peter's Basilica, John Paul II called for the international community to "lend an ear" to "the long-ignored aspirations of oppressed peoples". He specifically named the Kurds, a people who were fighting a civil war against Saddam Hussein's troops in Iraq, as one such people, and referred to the war as a "darkness menacing the earth". During this time, the Vatican had expressed its frustration with the international ignoring of the pope's calls for peace in the Middle East.

Rwandan genocide

In 1990 during the civil war between Tutsis and Hutus in the mostly Catholic country of Rwanda, John Paul II called for a ceasefire and condemned the persecution of the Tutsis. In 1994, he was the first world leader to condemn the massacre of the Tutsis as a genocide. In 1995, during his third visit to Kenya before an audience of 300,000, John Paul II pleaded for an end to the violence in Rwanda and Burundi, urging forgiveness and reconciliation as a solution to the genocide. He told Rwandan and Burundian refugees that he "was close to them and shared their immense pain". He said:

What is happening in your countries is a terrible tragedy that must end. During the African Synod, we, the pastors of the church, felt the duty to express our consternation and to launch an appeal for forgiveness and reconciliation. This is the only way to dissipate the threats of ethnocentrism that are hovering over Africa these days and that have so brutally touched Rwanda and Burundi.

Views on sexuality

While taking a traditional position on human sexuality, maintaining the Catholic Church's moral opposition to homosexual acts, John Paul II asserted that people with homosexual inclinations possess the same inherent dignity and rights as others. In his book ''Memory and Identity'', he referred to the "strong pressures" by the European Parliament to recognise homosexual unions as an alternative type of family, with the right to adopt children. In the book, as quoted by Reuters, he wrote: "It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, more subtle and hidden, perhaps, intent upon exploiting human rights themselves against man and against the family."

In 1986, the Pope approved the release of a document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding ''Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons''. While not neglecting to comment on homosexuality and moral order, the letter issued multiple affirmations of the dignity of homosexual persons.

A 1997 study determined that of all the pope's public statements, only 3% addressed the issue of sexual morality.

Reform of canon law

John Paul II completed a full-scale reform of the Catholic Church's legal system, Latin and Eastern, and a reform of the Roman Curia.

On 18 October 1990, when promulgating the '' Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches'', John Paul II stated

In 1998, John Paul II issued the motu proprio ''Ad tuendam fidem'', which amended two canons (750 and 1371) of the 1983 Code of Canon Law and two canons (598 and 1436) of the 1990 Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.

1983 Code of Canon Law

On 25 January 1983, with the Apostolic Constitution '' Sacrae disciplinae leges'' John Paul II promulgated the current Code of Canon Law for all members of the Catholic Church who belonged to the Latin Church. It entered into force the first Sunday of the following Advent,Ap. Const. ''Sacræ Disciplineæ Leges'' which was 27 November 1983. John Paul II described the new Code as "the last document of Vatican II". Edward N. Peters has referred to the 1983 Code as the "Johanno-Pauline Code" (''Johannes Paulus'' is Latin for "John Paul"), paralleling the "Pio-Benedictine" 1917 code that it replaced.

Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches

John Paul II promulgated the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (CCEO) on 18 October 1990, by the document ''Sacri Canones''. The CCEO came into force of law on 1 October 1991. It is the codification of the common portions of the Canon Law for the 23 of the 24 '' sui iuris'' churches in the Catholic Church that are the Eastern Catholic Churches. It is divided into 30 titles and has a total of 1540 canons.

''Pastor bonus''

John Paul II promulgated the apostolic constitution '' Pastor bonus'' on 28 June 1988. It instituted a number of reforms in the process of running the Roman Curia. ''Pastor bonus'' laid out in considerable detail the organisation of the Roman Curia, specifying precisely the names and composition of each dicastery, and enumerating the competencies of each dicastery. It replaced the previous special law, ''Regimini Ecclesiæ universæ'', which was promulgated by Paul VI in 1967.

''Catechism of the Catholic Church''

On 11 October 1992, in his apostolic constitution '' Fidei depositum'' (''The Deposit of Faith''), John Paul ordered the publication of the ''Catechism of the Catholic Church''.

He declared the publication to be "a sure norm for teaching the faith … a sure and authentic reference text for teaching Catholic doctrine and particularly for preparing local catechisms". It was "meant to encourage and assist in the writing of new local catechisms oth applicable and faithful rather than replacing them.

Role in the collapse of dictatorships

John Paul II has been credited with inspiring political change that not only led to the collapse of Communism in his native Poland and eventually all of Eastern Europe, but also in many countries ruled by dictators. In the words of Joaquín Navarro-Valls, John Paul II's press secretary:

The single fact of John Paul II's election in 1978 changed everything. In Poland, everything began. Not in East Germany or Czechoslovakia. Then the whole thing spread. Why in 1980 did they lead the way in Gdansk? Why did they decide, now or never? Only because there was a Polish pope. He was in Chile and Pinochet was out. He was in Haiti and Duvalier was out. He was in the Philippines and Marcos was out. On many of those occasions, people would come here to the Vatican thanking the Holy Father for changing things.

Chile

Before John Paul II's pilgrimage to Latin America, during a meeting with reporters, he criticised Augusto Pinochet's regime as "dictatorial". In the words of ''The New York Times'', he used "unusually strong language" to criticise Pinochet and asserted to journalists that the church in Chile must not only pray, but actively fight for the restoration of democracy in Chile.

During his visit to Chile in 1987, John Paul II asked Chile's 31 Catholic bishops to campaign for free elections in the country. According to George Weigel and Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, he encouraged Pinochet to accept a democratic opening of the regime, and may even have called for his resignation. According to Monsignor Sławomir Oder, the postulator of John Paul II's beatification cause, John Paul's words to Pinochet had a profound impact on the Chilean dictator. The pope confided to a friend: "I received a letter from Pinochet in which he told me that as a Catholic he had listened to my words, he had accepted them, and he had decided to begin the process to change the leadership of his country."

During his visit to Chile, John Paul II supported the Vicariate of Solidarity, the church-led pro-democracy, anti-Pinochet organisation. John Paul II visited the Vicariate of Solidarity's offices, spoke with its workers, and "called upon them to continue their work, emphasizing that the Gospel consistently urges respect for human rights". While in Chile, John Paul II made gestures of public support of Chile's anti-Pinochet democratic opposition. For instance, he hugged and kissed Carmen Gloria Quintana, a young student who had been nearly burned to death by Chilean police and told her that "We must pray for peace and justice in Chile." Later, he met with several opposition groups, including those that had been declared illegal by Pinochet's government. The opposition praised John Paul II for denouncing Pinochet as a "dictator", for many members of Chile's opposition were persecuted for much milder statements. Bishop Carlos Camus, one of the harshest critics of Pinochet's dictatorship within the Chilean Church, praised John Paul II's stance during the papal visit: "I am quite moved, because our pastor supports us totally. Never again will anyone be able to say that we are interfering in politics when we defend human dignity." He added: "No country the Pope has visited has remained the same after his departure. The Pope's visit is a mission, an extraordinary social catechism, and his stay here will be a watershed in Chilean history."

Some have erroneously accused John Paul II of affirming Pinochet's regime by appearing with the Chilean ruler in public. However, Cardinal Roberto Tucci, the organiser of John Paul II's visits, revealed that Pinochet tricked the pontiff by telling him he would take him to his living room, while in reality he took him to his balcony. Tucci says that the pontiff was "furious".

Haiti

John Paul II visited Haiti on 9 March 1983, when the country was ruled by Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. He bluntly criticised the poverty of the country, directly addressing Baby Doc and his wife, Michèle Bennett in front of a large crowd of Haitians:

Yours is a beautiful country, rich in human resources, but Christians cannot be unaware of the injustice, the excessive inequality, the degradation of the quality of life, the misery, the hunger, the fear suffered by the majority of the people.

John Paul II spoke in French and occasionally in Creole, and in the homily outlined the basic human rights that most Haitians lacked: "the opportunity to eat enough, to be cared for when ill, to find housing, to study, to overcome illiteracy, to find worthwhile and properly paid work; all that provides a truly human life for men and women, for young and old." Following John Paul II's pilgrimage, the Haitian opposition to Duvalier frequently reproduced and quoted the pope's message. Shortly before leaving Haiti, John Paul II called for social change in Haiti by saying: "Lift up your heads, be conscious of your dignity of men created in God's image...."

John Paul II's visit inspired massive protests against the Duvalier dictatorship. In response to the visit, 860 Catholic priests and church workers signed a statement committing the church to work on behalf of the poor. In 1986, Duvalier was deposed in an uprising.

Paraguay

The collapse of the dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay was linked, among other things, to John Paul II's visit to the South American country in May 1988. Since Stroessner's taking power through a coup d'état in 1954, Paraguay's bishops increasingly criticised the regime for human rights abuses, rigged elections, and the country's feudal economy. During his private meeting with Stroessner, John Paul II told the dictator:

Politics has a fundamental ethical dimension because it is first and foremost a service to man. The Church can and must remind men—and in particular those who govern—of their ethical duties for the good of the whole of society. The Church cannot be isolated inside its temples just as men's consciences cannot be isolated from God. David Willey, ''God's Politician: Pope John Paul II, the Catholic Church, and the New World Order'', p. 227, St. Martin's Press (1992),

Later, during a Mass, John Paul II criticised the regime for impoverishing the peasants and the unemployed, saying that the government must give people greater access to the land. Although Stroessner tried to prevent him from doing so, John Paul II met opposition leaders in the one-party state.

Role in the fall of Communism

Role as spiritual inspiration and catalyst

By the late 1970s, the dissolution of the Soviet Union had been predicted by some observers. John Paul II has been credited with being instrumental in bringing down Communism in Central and Eastern Europe, by being the spiritual inspiration behind its downfall and catalyst for "a peaceful revolution" in Poland. Lech Wałęsa, the founder of Solidarity and the first post-Communist President of Poland, credited John Paul II with giving Poles the courage to demand change. According to Wałęsa, "Before his pontificate, the world was divided into blocs. Nobody knew how to get rid of Communism. In Warsaw, in 1979, he simply said: 'Do not be afraid', and later prayed: 'Let your Spirit descend and change the image of the land … this land'." It has also been widely alleged that the Vatican Bank covertly funded Solidarity.

In 1984, the foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration saw opened diplomatic relations with the Vatican for the first time since 1870. In sharp contrast to the long history of strong domestic opposition, this time there was very little opposition from Congress, the courts, and Protestant groups. Relations between Reagan and John Paul II were close, especially because of their shared anti-communism and keen interest in forcing the Soviets out of Poland. Reagan's correspondence with the pope reveals "a continuous scurrying to shore up Vatican support for U.S. policies. Perhaps most surprisingly, the papers show that, as late as 1984, the pope did not believe the Communist Polish government could be changed."

No one can prove conclusively that he was a primary cause of the end of communism. However, the major figures on all sides—not just Lech Wałęsa, the Polish Solidarity leader, but also Solidarity's arch-opponent, General Wojciech Jaruzelski; not just the former American president George Bush Senior but also the former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev—now agree that he was. I would argue the historical case in three steps: without the Polish Pope, no Solidarity revolution in Poland in 1980; without Solidarity, no dramatic change in Soviet policy towards eastern Europe under Gorbachev; without that change, no velvet revolutions in 1989.

In December 1989, John Paul II met with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the Vatican and each expressed his respect and admiration for the other. Gorbachev once said: "The collapse of the Iron Curtain would have been impossible without John Paul II." On John Paul II's death, Mikhail Gorbachev said: "Pope John Paul II's devotion to his followers is a remarkable example to all of us."

On 4 June 2004, US President George W. Bush presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honour, to John Paul II during a ceremony at the Apostolic Palace. The president read the citation that accompanied the medal, which recognised "this son of Poland" whose "principled stand for peace and freedom has inspired millions and helped to topple communism and tyranny".
After receiving the award, John Paul II said, "May the desire for freedom, peace, a more humane world symbolised by this medal inspire men and women of goodwill in every time and place."

Communist attempt to compromise John Paul II

In 1983, Poland's Communist government unsuccessfully tried to humiliate John Paul II by falsely saying he had fathered an illegitimate child. Section D of Służba Bezpieczeństwa (SB), the security service, had an action named "Triangolo" to carry out criminal operations against the Catholic Church; the operation encompassed all Polish hostile actions against the pope. Captain Grzegorz Piotrowski, one of the murderers of beatified Jerzy Popiełuszko, was the leader of section D. They drugged Irena Kinaszewska, the secretary of the Kraków-based weekly Catholic magazine ''Tygodnik Powszechny'' where Karol Wojtyła had worked, and unsuccessfully attempted to make her admit to having had sexual relations with him.

The SB then attempted to compromise Kraków priest Andrzej Bardecki, an editor of ''Tygodnik Powszechny'' and one of the closest friends of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła before he became pope, by planting false memoirs in his dwelling, but Piotrowski was exposed and the forgeries were found and destroyed before the SB could "discover" them.

Relations with other Christian denominations

John Paul II travelled extensively and met with believers from many divergent faiths. At the World Day of Prayer for Peace, held in Assisi on 27 October 1986, more than 120 representatives of different religions and denominations spent a day of fasting and prayer.

Churches of the East

Although the contact between the Holy See and many Christians of the East had never totally ceased, communion had been interrupted since ancient times. Again, the history of conflict in Central Europe was a complex part of John Paul II's personal cultural heritage which made him all the more determined to react so as to attempt to overcome abiding difficulties, given that relatively speaking the Holy See and the non-Catholic Eastern Churches are close in many points of faith.

Eastern Orthodox Church

In May 1999, John Paul II visited Romania on the invitation from Patriarch Teoctist Arăpaşu of the Romanian Orthodox Church. This was the first time a pope had visited a predominantly Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism in 1054. On his arrival, the Patriarch and the President of Romania, Emil Constantinescu, greeted the pope. The Patriarch stated,

"The second millennium of Christian history began with a painful wounding of the unity of the Church; the end of this millennium has seen a real commitment to restoring Christian unity."

On 23–27 June 2001, John Paul II visited Ukraine, another heavily Orthodox nation, at the invitation of the President of Ukraine and bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The Pope spoke to leaders of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations, pleading for "open, tolerant and honest dialogue". About 200 thousand people attended the liturgies celebrated by the Pope in Kyiv, and the liturgy in Lviv gathered nearly one and a half million faithful. John Paul II said that an end to the Great Schism was one of his fondest wishes. Healing divisions between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches regarding Latin and Byzantine traditions was clearly of great personal interest. For many years, John Paul II sought to facilitate dialogue and unity stating as early as 1988 in ''Euntes in mundum'', "Europe has two lungs, it will never breathe easily until it uses both of them."

During his 2001 travels, John Paul II became the first pope to visit Greece in 1291 years. In Athens, the pope met with Archbishop Christodoulos, the head of the Church of Greece. After a private 30-minute meeting, the two spoke publicly. Christodoulos read a list of "13 offences" of the Catholic Church against the Eastern Orthodox Church since the Great Schism, including the pillaging of Constantinople by crusaders in 1204, and bemoaned the lack of apology from the Catholic Church, saying "Until now, there has not been heard a single request for pardon" for the "maniacal crusaders of the 13th century".

The pope responded by saying "For the occasions past and present, when sons and daughters of the Catholic Church have sinned by action or omission against their Orthodox brothers and sisters, may the Lord grant us forgiveness", to which Christodoulos immediately applauded. John Paul II said that the sacking of Constantinople was a source of "profound regret" for Catholics. Later John Paul II and Christodoulos met on a spot where Paul of Tarsus had once preached to Athenian Christians. They issued a 'common declaration', saying

"We shall do everything in our power, so that the Christian roots of Europe and its Christian soul may be preserved.... We condemn all recourse to violence, proselytism and fanaticism, in the name of religion."

The two leaders then said the Lord's Prayer together, breaking an Orthodox taboo against praying with Catholics.

The pope had said throughout his pontificate that one of his greatest dreams was to visit Russia, but this never occurred. He attempted to solve the problems that had arisen over centuries between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches, and in 2004 gave them a 1730 copy of the lost icon of Our Lady of Kazan.

Armenian Apostolic Church

John Paul II was determined to maintain good relations with the Armenian Apostolic Church, whose separation from the Holy See dated to Christian antiquity. In 1996, he brought the Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church closer by agreeing with Armenian Archbishop Karekin II on Christ's nature. During an audience in 2000, John Paul II and Karekin II, by then the Catholicos of All Armenians, issued a joint statement condemning the Armenian genocide. Meanwhile, the pope gave Karekin the relics of St. Gregory the Illuminator, the first head of the Armenian Church that had been kept in Naples, Italy, for 500 years. In September 2001, John Paul II went on a three-day pilgrimage to Armenia to take part in an ecumenical celebration with Karekin II in the newly consecrated St. Gregory the Illuminator Cathedral in Yerevan. The two Church leaders signed a declaration remembering the victims of the Armenian genocide.

Protestantism

Like his successors after him, John Paul II took a large number of initiatives to promote friendly relations, practical humanitarian cooperation and theological dialogue with a range of Protestant bodies. Of these the first in importance had to be with Lutheranism, given that the contention with Martin Luther and his followers was the most significant historical split in Western Christianity.

Lutheranism

From 15 to 19 November 1980, John Paul II visited West Germany on his first trip to a country with a large Lutheran Protestant population. In Mainz, he met with leaders of the Evangelical Church in Germany, and with representatives of other Christian denominations.

On 11 December 1983, John Paul II participated in an ecumenical service in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Rome, the first papal visit ever to a Lutheran church. The visit took place 500 years after the birth of the German Martin Luther, who was first an Augustinian friar and subsequently a leading Protestant Reformer.

In his apostolic pilgrimage to Norway, Iceland, Finland, Denmark and Sweden of June 1989, John Paul II became the first pope to visit countries with Lutheran majorities. In addition to celebrating Mass with Catholic believers, he participated in ecumenical services at places that had been Catholic shrines before the Reformation: Nidaros Cathedral in Norway; near St. Olav's Church at Thingvellir in Iceland; Turku Cathedral in Finland; Roskilde Cathedral in Denmark; and Uppsala Cathedral in Sweden.

On 31 October 1999, (the 482nd anniversary of Reformation Day, Martin Luther's posting of the 95 Theses), representatives of the Catholic Church's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Lutheran World Federation signed a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, as a gesture of unity. The signing was a fruit of a theological dialogue that had been going on between the Lutheran World Federation and the Holy See since 1965.

Anglicanism

John Paul II had good relations with the Church of England, as also with other parts of the Anglican Communion. He was the first reigning pope to travel to the United Kingdom, in 1982, where he met Queen Elizabeth II, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. He preached in Canterbury Cathedral and received Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He said that he was disappointed by the Church of England's decision to ordain women and saw it as a step away from unity between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church.

In 1980, John Paul II issued a Pastoral Provision allowing married former Episcopal priests to become Catholic priests, and for the acceptance of former Episcopal Church parishes into the Catholic Church. He allowed the creation of the a form of the Roman Rite, known informally by some as the Anglican Use, which incorporates selected elements of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer that are compatible with Catholic doctrine. He permitted Archbishop Patrick Flores of San Antonio