THE VATICAN/BULGARIA: Pope John Paul II's visit to Bulgaria, the first by any Pope, comes at a time when the country is gearing up for its historically unprecedented opportunity to join Western institutions such as NATO and the EU. For many, the visit is proof of Bulgaria's progress.
For the first time, the Pope publicly addressed lingering suspicions that Bulgarian secret services sponsored the 1981 assassination attempt by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca in St Peter's Square.
"I never believed in the so-called Bulgarian connection because of my great esteem and respect for the Bulgarian people," he told the Bulgarian President, Mr Georgi Purvanov, yesterday.
After 15 years of legal proceedings, three Bulgarians were acquitted by Italian courts of all charges.
"The visit will clearly remove the stain on Bulgaria's name and tell the world that we are not guilty," says Ms Nadezhda Stoyanova (70), a retired schoolteacher who came to see the Pope speak at the national cathedral, St Alexander Nevski, after his arrival on Thursday.
The Pope has come to Bulgaria as part of his globe-crossing effort to unite the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches, as well as other faiths.
He is visiting sites holy to Bulgarians, meeting local Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim leaders, and plans to beatify three Bulgarian Catholic clergymen executed for espionage in 1952.
While his efforts have met loud protests in other Orthodox countries, where church leaders accuse him of trying to find converts and undermining the influence of national churches, an Alpha Research opinion poll found 67 per cent of Bulgarians curious or approving of the visit.
The Pope received a hesitant welcome from Bulgarian patriarch Maxim, largely as a result of Russian influence in the church hierarchy, as most church leaders were educated in the former Soviet Union, according to Prof Christo Matanov, professor of Medieval Bulgarian history at Sofia University.
Prof Matanov says Bulgarians see his arrival as simply an important symbol of the West.
Bulgarian leaders, on the other hand, are using the occasion to show off the results of their single-minded efforts to move closer to Europe.
Noting the superficial perceptions of the historical event, political analyst Ivan Krustev writes in the Bulgarian daily Dnevnik how in Poland, during the Pope's visit in 1980, the country was silent, impatient to hear his message. The message was "do not be afraid".
"In Bulgaria, we don't want to hear what the Pope will say. We only want to see him. And if possible, have our pictures taken with him. This is the saddest thing in this otherwise important visit," he said. The enormous security measures are a big topic of conversation: every policeman in Sofia is on duty and much of the centre of Sofia is closed to car and foot traffic for several days.
For weeks, the government has been making cosmetic improvements to the city and fixing roads. Alcohol is banned in some places, although no one is certain because of the Interior Ministry's waffling on the issue.
And in Plovdiv, where the Pope will say Mass tomorrow, citizens are banned, for two days, from hanging their laundry outside to dry. "This is like in the old days when Brezhnev came to visit," says Prof Matanov. "We Bulgarians like our streets fixed everyday."