Bulgaria on alert for pope's visit

Pope John Paul II is carried on a mobile platform upon his arrival at Sofia's airport, Bulgaria

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Ailing Pope John Paul II has arrived in Bulgaria for his first papal visit to the country, where all its 27,000 police have been put on duty or standby.

It is hoped his four-day visit will heal wounds with the former communist country which was once implicated in the 1981 assassination attempt against the pontiff.

The trip is also aimed at bringing a reconciliation of Christianity's eastern and western churches.

The pope praised Christians in largely Orthodox Bulgaria for their resistance to communist-era oppression.

The 82-year-old pope, who has looked ever more frail recently, had the strength to make impromptu remarks in Italian after his official speech, thanking Bulgarians for his welcome joking: "The pope is an old man and that's why he is sitting down," while he gestured to Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov, who stood by his side during the arrival ceremony.

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He urged Bulgaria to retain Christian values as it undertakes difficult social reforms in the push to convert the still deeply poor ex-communist state to a market economy, Reuters news agency reported.

He also remembered the victims of east Europe's authoritarian regimes.

"Even during the long winter of the totalitarian system, which brought suffering to your country... numberless children of this people remained heroically faithful to Christ, in not a few cases to the point of sacrificing their lives," the pope said.

The hard-line communists who ruled Bulgaria from World War Two to 1989 repressed both majority Orthodox Christians, around 80 percent of the 8 million population, and the 80,000 Roman Catholic minority in the name of atheism.

On arrival in Sofia, the pope was carried down the steps of the plane on a lift and his usual ritual of kissing the tarmac on disembarkation was substituted for his blessing a pot of soil lifted to his lips.

He was then ferried to the airport terminal on an electric platform.

The tour is likely to be a strain on an ailing pope who has been forced to jettison some of his traditional rituals during the two-country tour of Azerbaijan and Bulgaria.

During the first-stage in Azerbaijan, the pope escaped a security alert when a shouting man on crutches rushed towards the altar where the pope was presiding over mass.

Security officials told journalists the man said he wanted to have his picture taken with the pontiff. The situation resolved itself and the man later received a blessing from the pope.

The pope survived an assassination attempt 20 years ago in Rome for which three Bulgarians were tried for suspected complicity in the shooting by a Turk but cleared by the Italian court through lack of evidence.

Pope John Paul has said he has "never ceased" to love the Bulgarian people.

Foreign Minister Solomon Pasi is quoted by The Associated Press as calling the visit "a blessing," adding: "This visit will wipe out the undeserved taint Bulgaria has carried for the past 20 years."

Helicopters made low sweeps over the capital and army snipers took up positions around the airport as the pope arrived at about 6 p.m. local time on Thursday.

Security guards block a man as he rushes Pope John Paul II

Security was reported to have deterred the majority of Bulgaria's Roman Catholics from attending the official welcoming ceremony in central Sofia.

The pontiff, who first visited an Orthodox country in 1999 when he travelled to Romania, is likely to use his Bulgarian trip to renew his call for a reunification of Christianity's eastern and western Churches, which split in 1054.

He is scheduled to visit an Orthodox monastery near the southern town of Rila and hold an outdoor mass in the southeast in Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second-largest city.

As well as meeting Patriarch Maxim on Friday, the pope will also meet leaders of the one million Bulgarian Muslims and the country's tiny Jewish community, which numbers between 7,000 and 8,000, some of whom worship at the world's largest Sephardic synagogue in Sofia.

He also plans to beatify three Roman Catholic priests who were executed in 1952 after being convicted of spying by the then communist regime.

The pope arrived in Bulgaria from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku after a two-day trip during which he gave mass for all 120 of the country's registered Roman Catholics -- mostly expatriates.