The life of Karol Wojtyla, whom the world knows under the name of John Paul 2, was filled with both tragic and joyful events. He became the first Pope with Slavic roots. A huge era is associated with his name. In his post, Pope John Paul 2 showed himself as a tireless fighter against the political and social oppression of people. Many of his public speeches supporting human rights and freedoms have turned him into a symbol of the fight against authoritarianism.
Childhood
Karol Jozef Wojtyla, the future great John Paul 2, was born in a small town near Krakow in a military family. His father, a lieutenant in the Polish army, was fluent in German and systematically taught the language to his son. The mother of the future pontiff is a teacher; according to some sources, she was Ukrainian. It is precisely the fact that the ancestors of John Paul 2 were of Slavic blood, apparently, that explains the fact that the Pope understood and respected everything related to the Russian language and culture. When the boy was eight years old, he lost his mother, and at the age of twelveage, his older brother also died. As a child, the boy was fond of the theater. He dreamed of growing up and becoming an artist, and at the age of 14 he even wrote a play called "The Spirit King".
Youth
In 1938, John Paul II, whose biography any Christian can envy, graduated from a classical college and received the sacrament of chrismation. As historians testify, Karol studied quite successfully. Having completed his secondary education on the eve of World War II, he continued his studies at the Krakow Jagiellonian University at the Faculty of Polonist Studies.
In four years he managed to pass philology, literature, Church Slavonic writing and even the basics of the Russian language. As a student, Karol Wojtyla enrolled in a theater group. During the years of the occupation, the professors of this one of the most famous universities in Europe were sent to concentration camps, and classes officially stopped. But the future pontiff continued his studies, attending classes underground. And so that he would not be driven to Germany, and he could support his father, whose pension was cut by the invaders, the young man went to work in a quarry near Krakow, and then moved to a chemical plant.
Education
In 1942, Karol enrolled in the general education courses of the theological seminary, which operated underground in Krakow. In 1944, Archbishop Stefan Sapieha, for security reasons, transferred Wojtyla and several other "illegal" seminarians to the diocesan administration, where they worked in the archbishop's palace until the end of the war. Thirteen languages spoken fluently by John Paul IIbiographies of saints, one hundred philosophical and theological and philosophical works, as well as fourteen encyclicals and five books written by him, made him one of the most enlightened pontiffs.
Church Ministry
On November 1, 1946, Wojtyla was ordained a priest. Just a couple of days later, he went to Rome to continue his theological education. In 1948 he completed his doctoral thesis on the writings of the Reformed Carmelites, the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross. After that, Karol returned to his homeland, where he was appointed assistant rector in the parish of the village of Negovich in southern Poland.
In 1953, at the Jagiellonian University, the future pontiff defended another thesis on the possibility of substantiating Christian ethics on the basis of Scheler's ethical system. Since October of the same year, he begins to teach moral theology, but soon the Polish communist government closed the faculty. Then Wojtyla was offered to head the Department of Ethics at the Catholic University of Ljubljana.
In 1958, Pope Pius XII appointed him Auxiliary Bishop in the Archbishopric of Krakow. In September of the same year, he was ordained. The rite was performed by Lvov Archbishop Bazyak. And after the death of the latter in 1962, Wojtyla was elected capitular vicar.
From 1962 to 1964, the biography of John Paul 2 is closely connected with the Second Vatican Council. He took part in all sessions convened by the thenPontiff John XXIII. In 1967, the future Pope was elevated to the rank of cardinal priest. After the death of Paul VI in 1978, Karol Wojtyla voted in the conclave, as a result of which Pope John Paul I was elected. However, the latter died just thirty-three days later. In October 1978, a new conclave was held. The participants split into two camps. Some defended the archbishop of Genoa, Giuseppe Siri, who was famous for his conservative views, while others defended Giovanni Benelli, who was known as a liberal. Without reaching a common agreement, in the end the conclave chose a compromise candidate, which became Karol Wojtyla. Upon accession to the papacy, he took the name of his predecessor.
Character Traits
Pope John Paul 2, whose biography has always been associated with the church, became a pope at the age of fifty-eight. Like his predecessor, he sought to simplify the position of pontiff, in particular, deprived her of some of the royal attributes. For example, he began to speak of himself as the Pope, using the pronoun "I", refused to be crowned, instead of which he simply carried out enthronement. He never wore a tiara and considered himself a servant of God.
Eight times John Paul II visited his homeland. He played a huge role in the fact that the change of power in Poland in the late 1980s took place without a shot being fired. After his conversation with General Jaruzelski, the latter peacefully handed over the leadership of the country to Walesa, who had already received papal blessing for democratic reforms.
Attempt
On May 13, 1981, the life of John Paul II almost ended. It was on this day in the square of St. Peter in the Vatican, he was assassinated. The perpetrator was a member of the Turkish far-right extremists Mehmet Agca. The terrorist seriously wounded the pontiff in the stomach. He was arrested immediately at the scene of the crime. Two years later, dad came to Agca in prison, where he was serving a life sentence. The victim and the perpetrator talked about something for a long time, but John Paul 2 did not want to talk about the topic of their conversation, although he said that he had forgiven him.
Prophecies
Subsequently, he came to the conclusion that the hand of the Mother of God took the bullet away from him. And the reason for this was the famous Fatima predictions of the Virgin Mary, which John recognized. Paul 2 was so interested in the prophecy of the Mother of God, in particular, the last one, that he devoted many years to studying it. In fact, there were three predictions: the first of them related to two world wars, the second in allegorical form concerned the revolution in Russia.
As for the third prophecy of the Virgin Mary, for a long time it was the subject of hypotheses and incredible conjectures, which is not surprising: the Vatican kept it a deep secret for a long time. It was even said by the highest Catholic clergy that it would forever remain a secret. And only Pope John Paul 2 decided to reveal to the people the riddle of the last Fatima prophecy. He has always had the courage to act. On the thirteenth of May, on the day of his eighty-third birthday, he declared that he saw no point in the need to keep the secret of the predictions of the Virgin Mary. VaticanThe Secretary of State outlined what the nun Lucia wrote down, to whom the Mother of God appeared in her childhood. The message said that the Virgin Mary predicted the martyrdom that the popes would follow in the twentieth century, even the assassination attempt on John Paul II by Turkish terrorist Ali Agca.
Years of pontificate
In 1982, he met with Yasser Arafat. A year later, John Paul II visited the Lutheran church in Rome. He became the first pope to take such a step. In December 1989, for the first time in the history of the Vatican, the pontiff received a Soviet leader. It was Mikhail Gorbachev.
Hard work, numerous trips around the world undermine the he alth of the head of the Vatican. In July 1992, the pontiff announced his upcoming hospitalization. John Paul II was diagnosed with a tumor in the intestines, which had to be removed. The operation went well, and soon the pontiff returned to his normal life.
A year later, he secured diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel. In April 1994, the pontiff slipped and fell. It turned out that he had a broken femoral neck. Independent experts claim that it was then that John Paul 2 developed Parkinson's disease.
But even this serious illness does not stop the pontiff in his peacekeeping activities. In 1995, he asks for forgiveness for the evil that Catholics have inflicted on believers of other faiths in the past. A year and a half later, the Cuban leader Castro comes to the pontiff. In 1997, dad came toSarajevo, where in his speech he speaks of the tragedy of the civil war in this country as a challenge for Europe. During this visit, there were several minefields in the way of his cortege.
In the same year, the pontiff comes to Bologna for a rock concert, where he appears as a listener. A few months later, John Paul 2, whose biography is full of peacekeeping activities, undertakes a pastoral visit to the territory of communist Cuba. In Havana, at a meeting with Castro, he condemns the economic sanctions against this country and gives the leader a list of three hundred political prisoners. This historic visit culminates in a mass celebrated by the pontiff in the Revolution Square in the Cuban capital, where more than a million people gather. After the departure of the pope, the authorities released more than half of the prisoners.
In the year 2000, the pontiff comes to Israel, where in Jerusalem at the Wailing Wall he prays for a long time. In 2002, John Paul II visited a mosque in Damascus. He becomes the first pope to take such a step.
Peacekeeping
Condemning all wars and actively criticizing them, in 1982, during the Falkland Islands crisis, the pontiff visits Great Britain and Argentina, calling on these countries to conclude peace. In 1991, the Pope denounces the conflict in the Persian Gulf. When the war broke out in Iraq in 2003, John Paul II sent a cardinal from the Vatican on a peacekeeping mission to Baghdad. In addition, he blessed another legate to talk with the then President of the United States. Bush. During the meeting, his envoy conveyed the sharp and rather negative attitude of the pontiff to the invasion of Iraq to the head of the American state.
Apostolic visits
John Paul 2 visited about one hundred and thirty countries during his foreign trips. Most of all, he came to Poland - eight times. The pontiff made six visits to the USA and France. In Spain and Mexico, he was five times. All his trips had one goal: they were aimed at helping to strengthen the positions of Catholicism around the world, as well as establishing ties with other religions, and primarily with Islam and Judaism. Everywhere the pontiff spoke out against violence, defending the rights of the people and rejecting dictatorial regimes.
In general, during his time at the head of the Vatican, the Pope traveled more than a million kilometers. His unfulfilled dream remained a trip to our country. During the years of communism, his visit to the USSR was impossible. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, though it became politically possible, the Russian Orthodox Church opposed the arrival of the pontiff.
Death
John Paul 2 died at the age of 85. Thousands of people spent the night from Saturday to Sunday April 2, 2005 in front of the Vatican, carrying in their memory the deeds, words and image of this amazing man. Candles were lit in St. Peter's Square and silence reigned despite the huge number of mourners.
Funeral
Farewell to John Paul II has become one of the most massive ceremonies in the modern history of mankind. At the funeral liturgyThree hundred thousand people were present, four million pilgrims accompanied the Pope to eternal life. More than a billion believers of all faiths prayed for the repose of the soul of the deceased, and the number of viewers who watched the ceremony on TV is impossible to count. In memory of his countryman, a commemorative coin "John Paul 2" was issued in Poland.
