John Paul II
Bulgaria-Azerbaijan Trip Gallery
Bulgaria:
The Pope told Bulgaria's
president that he never believed allegations that there was a Bulgarian
connection to the 1981 attempt on his life. It was the first time John Paul has
publicly expressed his view about lingering suspicions that Bulgarian secret
agents were behind Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca's shooting of the pope in St.
Peter's Square in Rome on May 13, 1981.
The Pope visited Sofia's
main Orthodox cathedral, and met with Patriarch Maxim, leader of Bulgaria's
Orthodox Christians and a feisty cleric who until recently had repeatedly
snubbed the pontiff by refusing to see him. The meeting was the pope's latest
effort to break down traditional barriers between the world's major religions
and focus instead on the common values that bind them.
Azerbaijan,
May 22, 2002
The 82-year-old
Pope arrived in Azerbaijan on the first leg of the 96th trip of his
lengthy pontificate. The Pope said Mass for all of Azerbaijan's registered
Catholics and about 1,300 other guests,
most of them Muslims, in a concrete Soviet-era sports hall. In his homily, the
pope paid tribute to the victims of Marxist persecution.
The
Pope, who has sought to reconcile the millennium-old
divide between Catholics and the Orthodox Church, greeted Orthodox leaders. The
pope did not mention Islam in his comments at the Mass. He met with
representatives of the country's Muslim, Jewish and Orthodox Christian
communities before leaving for Bulgaria.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/30/world/main575864.shtml