Great John Paul 2: biography, biography, history and prophecy

The life of Carol Wojtyla, whom the world knows by the name of John Paul II, was filled with both tragic and joyous events. He became the first Pope with Slavic roots. A huge era is associated with his name. At his post, Pope John Paul II showed himself as a relentless fighter with political and social oppression of people. Many of his public speeches, supporting human rights and freedoms, turned him into a symbol of the struggle 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, the lieutenant of the Polish army, perfectly mastered 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 because the ancestors of John Paul 2 were Slavic blood, apparently, and explains that the Pope understood and respected everything connected with the Russian language and culture. When the boy was eight years old, he lost his mother, and at the age of twelve his elder brother also died. As a child, the boy was fond of theater. He dreamed of growing up and becoming an artist, and at the age of 14 even wrote a play called "The King-Spirit."

Youth

In 1938, John Paul II, whose biography any Christian can envy, graduated from the classical college and accepted the mystery of the anointing. As historians testify, Karol learned quite successfully. After completing his secondary education on the eve of World War II, he continued his studies at the Faculty of Polonistics at the University of Krakow in Jagiellonian .

For 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 occupation, the professor of this one of the most famous universities in Europe was sent to concentration camps, and classes officially stopped. But the future pontiff continued his studies, attending classes underground. And so that he could not be hijacked to Germany, and he could support his father, whom the occupants had cut his pension, the young man went to work at the quarry near Krakow, and then went to the chemical plant.

Education

In 1942, Karol enrolled in the general education courses of the theological seminary, which functioned underground in Krakow. In 1944, Archbishop Stefan Sapega for security reasons translated 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 II, 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.

Serving the Church

On November 1, 1946, Wojtyla was ordained a priest. After a couple of days, he went to Rome to continue his theological education. In 1948 he defended his doctoral work on the subject of the works of the Reformed Order of the Carmelites, a Spanish mystic of the sixteenth century. John the Cross. After that, Karol returned to his homeland, he was appointed assistant to the abbot in the parish of the village of Negovic in the south of Poland.

In 1953, at the Jagiellonian University, the future pontiff defended another thesis on the possibility of substantiating Christian ethics on the basis of the ethical system of Scheler. From October of the same year he began to teach moral theology, but soon the Polish communist government closed the faculty. Then Wojtyla was asked 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 Cracow. In September of the same year, his ordination took place. The ceremony was performed by Lviv archbishop Bazyak. And after the latter's death in 1962, Wojtyla was elected capitulum vicar.

From 1962 to 1964, the biography of John Paul II is closely interrelated 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 the cardinals-priests. After the death of Paul VI in 1978, Karol Wojtyla voted in the conclave, resulting in the election of Pope John Paul I. However, the latter only thirty-three days later died. In October 1978, a new conclave was held. Participants split into two camps. Some defended Archbishop Genoa Giuseppe Siri, famous for his conservative views, and others - Giovanni Benelli, who was known as a liberal. Without coming to a common agreement, in the end the conclave chose a compromise candidate, which was Karol Wojtyla. When he ascended the papal throne, he assumed 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 the pontiff, in particular, deprived her of some royal attributes. For example, he began to speak of himself as the Pope, using the pronoun "I", refused to coronate, instead of which he simply enthroned. He never wore a tiara and considered himself a slave 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 handed over the leadership of the country to Valença, who had already received the papal blessing for carrying out democratic reforms.

Attempted

On May 13, 1981, the life of John Paul II nearly broke off. It was on this day in St. Peter in the Vatican was assassinated. The executor was a member of Turkish ultra-right extremists Mehmet Agca. The terrorist severely wounded the pontiff in the stomach. He was arrested immediately, at the crime scene. Two years later, my father came to Agge to prison, where he was serving a life sentence. The victim and the criminal talked for a long time, however, John Paul II did not want to talk about the topic of their conversation, although he said that he forgave him.

Prophecies

Subsequently, he came to the conviction that the hand of the Mother of God removed the bullet from him. And the reason for this was the famous Fatima predictions of the Virgin Mary, which John recognized. Paul 2 prophecy of the Mother of God, in particular, the latter, was so interested that he devoted it to the study for many years. In fact, there were three predictions: the first was related to two world wars, the second in an allegorical way 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 secrecy. The highest Catholic clergy was even told that it would remain forever a mystery. And only Pope John Paul II decided to open to the people the riddle of the last Fatima prophecy. He always had the courage to do things. On May thirteenth, on the day of his eighty-trillion years, he declared that he saw no point in the need to preserve the secrets of the predictions of the Virgin Mary. The Vatican Secretary of State outlined in general terms what the nun Lucia recorded, which the Virgin appeared as a child. The report said that the Virgin Mary predicted the martyrdom by which the Pope of Rome in the twentieth century, even the attempt on John Paul II, committed by the Turkish terrorist Ali Ajdoy, will take place.

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 pope to take such a step. In December 1989, the pontiff for the first time in the history of the Vatican accepts the Soviet leader. They were 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 forthcoming hospitalization. John Paul II diagnosed a tumor in the intestines that had to be removed. The operation was successful, and soon the pontiff returned to his usual life.

A year later he achieved the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel. In April 1994, the Pontiff, having slipped, fell. It turned out that his neck was broken. Independent experts say that it was then that John Paul II began Parkinson's disease.

But even this serious ailment does not stop the pontiff in his peacekeeping activity. In 1995, he asks for forgiveness for the evil that the Catholics in the past caused to believers of other faiths. A year and a half later, the Cuban leader Castro comes to the pontiff. In 1997, the pope comes to Sarajevo, where in his speech he talks about the tragedy of the civil war in this country as a challenge for Europe. During this visit, there were minefields on the way to his motorcade.

In the same year the pontiff arrives in Bologna for a rock concert, where he appears as a listener. A few months later, John Paul II, whose biography is full of peacekeeping activities, is making a pastoral visit to the territory of Communist Cuba. In Havana, at a meeting with Castro, he condemns economic sanctions against this country and passes to the leader a list of three hundred political prisoners. The culmination of this historic visit is the mass that the pontiff holds at 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 two thousandth year the pontiff comes to Israel, where in Jerusalem at the Wailing Wall prayed for a long time. In 2002, in Damascus, John Paul II visited the mosque. He becomes the first pope to take such a step.

Peacekeeping activities

Condemning all wars and actively criticizing them, in 1982, during the crisis associated with the Falkland Islands, the pontiff visited the United Kingdom and Argentina, urging these countries to conclude a peace. In 1991, the pope came out with a condemnation of the conflict in the Persian Gulf. When the war broke out 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 for a conversation with then-US President Bush. During the meeting, his envoy handed 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 foreign trips. Most of all, he came to Poland eight times. In the US and France, the pontiff was with six visits. In Spain and Mexico, he was five times. All his trips had one goal: they were aimed at promoting the strengthening of Catholic positions throughout the world, as well as establishing links with other religions, primarily with Islam and Judaism. Everywhere the pontiff opposed violence, advocating for human rights and denying dictatorial regimes.

In general, during his stay at the head of the Vatican, the pope traveled more than a million kilometers. His unfulfilled dream was 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 became politically possible, but then the Russian Orthodox Church opposed the arrival of the pontiff.

The demise

John Paul II died on the eighty fifth year of life. Thousands of people spent the night from Saturday to Sunday, April 2, 2005, in front of the Vatican, carrying out the words and the image of this amazing person. In St. Peter's Square candles were lit and silence reigned, despite the huge number of mourners.

The funeral

Farewell to John Paul II became one of the most mass ceremonies for the modern history of mankind. At the mourning liturgy, there were three hundred thousand people, four million pilgrims spent the Pope in eternal life. More than a billion believers of all faiths prayed for the repose of the deceased soul, and the number of spectators watching the ceremony on TV can not be counted. In memory of his countryman in Poland, a commemorative coin "John Paul 2" was released.