Pope Saint John Paul II 12 Famous First Visits

Pope Saint John Paul II whose name in Latin is Ioannes Paulus II, was born Karol Józef Wojtyła on 18 May 1920 in Wadowice, Poland and was pope from 16 October 1978 until his death at the age of 84 on 2 April 2005 in Italy. Nicknamed "Pilgrim Pope", he was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years (since Pope Adrian VI who died in 1523) and the first ever from a Slavic country.

Pope Francis canonized Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII on April 27, 2014.

1. First pope to visit the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland on 7 June 1979, where many of his Polish Jew compatriots had perished during the Nazi occupation in World War II.
2. First pope to visit Ireland, on 29 September 1979, a devoutly Catholic country, just 11 months after being pope.
3. First pope to visit the White House on 6 October 1979, where he was greeted warmly by then-President Jimmy Carter. Pope Saint John Paul II gave a silver sculpture with the words “Peace Unto Thee” to the president and a parchment copy of his first encyclical letter to the President’s mother, Lillian.
4. First reigning pope to make a pastoral visit to United Kingdom during the Falklands War, on 28 May 1982, where he met Queen Elizabeth II, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
5. First pope to have a pastoral visit to Spain on 8 November 1982 in Valencia.
6. First pope to visit and participated in an ecumenical service in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Rome on 11 December 1983, 500 years after the birth of Martin Luther, the German Augustinian monk who initiated the Lutheran reformation.
7. First pope known to have made an official papal visit to a synagogue, the Great Synagogue of Rome on 13 April 1986 and met Rome's Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff.
8. First pope to visit Romania, a predominantly Eastern Orthodox country, on 7 May 1999 since the Great Schism or the East-West Schism (an event that separated Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism in 1054) on the invitation from Patriarch Teoctist Arăpaşu of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
9. First modern pope to visit Egypt on 25 February 2000, where he met with the Coptic pope, Pope Shenouda III, the leader of the major Christian church in Egypt and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria and Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, the sheik of Al Azhar, the highest authority of the Sunni Muslim faith.
10. First pope to officially visit Jerusalem on 26 March 2000 and pray at the Western Wall and also visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum which are sites that are central to Judaism.
11. First Catholic pope to visit, enter and pray in an Islamic mosque, in Damascus, Syria, on 6 May 2001 in the company of Mufti Ahmed Kuftaro of Syria when he visited the Umayyad Mosque, a former Byzantine era Christian church where John the Baptist is believed to be interred.
12. First pope to visit Greece in 1291 years, on 4 May 2001 in Athens, the Pope met with Archbishop Christodoulos, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church.

Pope Saint John Paul II 1994 TIME Man of the Year

References:

HIGHLIGHTS ON THE LIFE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II
Two Women Helped Put Pope John Paul II on the Path to Sainthood
John Paul II Biography
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Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to visit the White House
Bruno Barbey - POLAND. 1979. Pope John PAUL II's Official Visit.
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Revealed: How Pope John Paul II sent secret envoy to Margaret Thatcher during Falklands War to ask Britain to abandon islands
John Paul II Holy Mass In Westminster Cathedral, London, 28 May 1982
Pope made important overtures to non-Christian religions
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Visit of Pope John Paul II White House Statement.
Western Wall Prayer
Papal Visits to Israel: A Retrospective
1979: Pope calls for peace in Ireland
The Pope’s visit to Ireland
John Paul II at the Cathedral
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USCCB Blog Pope John Paul II: East-West Relations
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Pope John Paul II's relations with the Eastern Orthodox Church
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