The life of Karol Wojtyla, whom the world knows under the name John Paul 2, was filled with tragic and joyful events. He became the first Pope with Slavic roots. A huge era is associated with his name. At his post, Pope John Paul 2 manifested himself as a tireless fighter with the political and social oppression of people. Many of his public appearances, supporting human rights and freedoms, turned him into a symbol of the struggle against authoritarianism.
Childhood
Karol Jozef Wojtyła, the future great John Paul 2, was born in a small town near Krakow in a military family. His father, a lieutenant of the Polish army, was fluent in German and systematically taught the language of his son. The mother of the future pontiff is a teacher, she, according to some sources, was Ukrainian. It is precisely because the ancestors of John Paul 2 were of Slavic blood that apparently 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 twelve his older brother also died. In childhood, the boy was fond of theater. He dreamed of growing up and becoming an artist, and at the age of 14 he even wrote a play entitled “The Spirit King”.
Youth
In 1938, John Paul II, whose biography can be envied by any Christian, graduated from classical college and accepted the sacrament of anointment. According to historians, Karol studied quite successfully. After completing his secondary education on the eve of World War II, he continued his studies at the Faculty of Polonics at the Cracow Jagiellonian University.
For four years he managed to go through philology, literature, Church Slavonic writing, and even the basics of the Russian language. As a student, Karol Wojtyla enrolled in a theater circle. During the years of 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 hijacked to Germany, and he could support his father, whom the occupiers cut their pensions, the young man went to work in a quarry near Krakow, and then went to a chemical plant.
Education
In 1942, Karol enrolled in general seminary courses, which functioned underground in Krakow. In 1944, for security reasons, Archbishop Stefan Sapega transferred Wojtylu 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 II, the biographies 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, Wojtylu was ordained a priest. Literally a couple of days later he went to Rome to continue his theological education. In 1948, he defended his doctoral work on the reformatics of the Order of the Carmelites, the Spanish mystic of the sixteenth century St. John of the Cross. After this, Karol returned to his homeland, where he was appointed assistant rector in the parish of the village of Negowicz in southern Poland.
In 1953, at the Jagiellonian University, the future pontiff defended another dissertation on the possibilities of substantiating Christian ethics based on the Scheler ethical system. In October of that year he began to teach moral theology, but soon the Polish communist government closed the faculty. Then Wojtyle was offered to head the department of ethics at the Catholic University in Ljubljana.
In 1958, Pope Pius XII appointed him auxiliary bishop in the archbishopric of Krakow. In September of that year, he was ordained. The rite was performed by the Lviv 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 interconnected with the Second Vatican Council. He participated in all sessions convened by the then pontiff John XXIII. In 1967, the future Pope was elevated to cardinal priests. 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 only thirty-three days later. In October 1978, a new conclave took place. The participants split into two camps. Some defended the archbishop of Genoa, Giuseppe Siri, famous for his conservative views, while others - Giovanni Benelli, who was known as a liberal. Without reaching a general agreement, the conclave ultimately chose a compromise candidate, which was Karol Wojtyla. Upon accession to the papal throne, he adopted the name of his predecessor.
Character traits
Pope John Paul 2, whose biography has always been associated with the church, became pope at the age of fifty-eight. Like his predecessor, he sought to simplify the position of the pontiff, in particular, deprived her of some royal attributes. For example, he began to talk about himself as the Pope, using the pronoun "I", refused coronation, instead of which he simply performed intronization. He never wore a tiara and considered himself a servant of God.
Eight times John Paul 2 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 single shot. After his conversation with General Jaruzelski, the latter peacefully transferred the leadership of the country to Valence, who had already managed to receive the papal blessing for democratic reforms.
Attempt
On May 13, 1981, the life of John Paul II nearly ended. It is on this day in St. Peter in the Vatican was an attempt on him. The performer was a member of the Turkish ultra-right extremists, Mehmet Agja. The terrorist severely wounded the pontiff in the stomach. He was arrested immediately, at the crime scene. Two years later, dad came to Agja in prison, where he was serving a life sentence. The victim and the criminal talked for a long time about something, but John Paul 2 did not want to talk about the topic of their conversation, although he said that he had forgiven him.
The prophecies
Subsequently, he came to the conclusion that the hand of the Mother of God diverted a bullet from him. And the reason for this was the famous Fatima predictions of the Virgin Mary, which John recognized. Paul 2 the prophecy of the Mother of God, in particular, the latter, was so interested that he devoted it to the study of many years. 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 for a long time kept it in the deepest secret. The higher Catholic clergy even said that it would remain a mystery forever. And only Pope John Paul 2 decided to reveal to the people the mystery of the last Fatima prophecy. He was always inherent in the courage of actions. On the thirteenth of May, on the day of his eighty-third birthday, he declared that he saw no reason for the need to preserve the secret of the predictions of the Virgin Mary. The Vatican Secretary of State outlined what the nun Lucia, who the Mother of God appeared in childhood, recorded. The report said that the Virgin Mary predicted the martyrdom that the popes would follow in the twentieth century, even the attempt on John Paul II by the Turkish terrorist Ali Agjah.
Years of the pontificate
In 1982, he meets with Yasser Arafat. A year later, John Paul II visited the Lutheran Church in Rome. He became the first dad to take such a step. In December 1989, for the first time in the history of the Vatican, the pontiff received the Soviet leader. It was Mikhail Gorbachev.
Hard work, numerous trips around the world undermine the health 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 intestine that needed to be removed. The operation went well, and soon the pontiff returned to his usual life.
A year later, he ensured that diplomatic relations were established between the Vatican and Israel. In April 1994, the pontiff slipped and fell. It turned out that his hip neck was broken. Independent experts claim that it was then that John Paul 2 began Parkinson's disease.
But even this serious ailment does not stop the pontiff in his peacekeeping activities. In 1995, he asks for forgiveness for the evil that Catholics in the past did to believers of other faiths. After a year and a half, the Cuban leader Castro arrives at the pontiff. In 1997, Pope came to Sarajevo, where in his speech he spoke of the tragedy of the civil war in this country as a challenge for Europe. During this visit, mine barriers were more than once in the path of his motorcade.
In the same year, the pontiff came to Bologna for a rock concert, where he appeared as a listener. A few months later, John Paul 2, whose biography is full of peacekeeping, is undertaking a pastoral visit to the territory of communist Cuba. In Havana, at a meeting with Castro, he condemns economic sanctions against this country and gives the leader a list of three hundred political prisoners. The culmination of this historic visit is the mass held by the pontiff on Revolution Square in the Cuban capital, where more than a million people gather. After the pope left, authorities released more than half of the prisoners.
In the year 2000, the pontiff came to Israel, where in Jerusalem at the Wailing Wall he prays for a long time. In 2002, John Paul II visits a mosque in Damascus. He becomes the first dad to take such a step.
Peacekeeping
Condemning any wars and actively criticizing them, in 1982, during the crisis associated with the Falkland Islands, the pontiff visited Great Britain and Argentina, urging these countries to conclude peace. In 1991, Pope condemned the Gulf conflict. When the war began in Iraq in 2003, John Paul 2 sent a cardinal from the Vatican with a peacekeeping mission to Baghdad. In addition, he blessed another legate to speak with then-President Bush. During the meeting, his envoy conveyed to the head of the American state a sharp and rather negative attitude of the pontiff to the invasion of Iraq.
Apostolic Visits
John Paul 2 visited about one hundred and thirty countries during his overseas trips. Most of all he came to Poland - eight times. In the United States and France, the pontiff had six visits. In Spain and Mexico, he was five times. All his trips had one goal: they were aimed at promoting the strengthening of Catholicism around the world, as well as at establishing ties with other religions, especially with Islam and Judaism. Everywhere the pontiff opposed violence, advocating for the rights of people and denying dictatorial regimes.
In general, during his stay at the head of the Vatican, Dad drove more than a million kilometers. His unfulfilled dream remained a trip to our country. During the reign of communism, his visit to the USSR was impossible. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, a visit, although politically possible, was made, but then the Russian Orthodox Church opposed the arrival of the pontiff.
Death
John Paul 2 passed away in his eighty-fifth year of life. Thousands of people spent the night from Saturday to Sunday, April 2, 2005 in front of the Vatican, carrying in memory the deeds, words and image of this amazing person. Candles were lit in St. Peter's Square and silence reigned, despite the huge number of mourners.
The funeral
Farewell to John Paul II was one of the most massive ceremonies in the recent history of mankind. Three hundred thousand people attended the funeral liturgy; four million pilgrims led the pope into eternal life. More than a billion believers of all faiths prayed for the repose of the soul of the deceased, and the number of spectators who watched the ceremony on television cannot be counted. In memory of his fellow countryman in Poland, a commemorative coin "John Paul 2" was issued.