Tag: Pope Benedict XVI

ITCCS : Why the Pope retired For Real

ITCCS : Why the Pope retired For Real : Kevin Annett : European Governance issued an arrest warrant : and Closure and seizure of Vatican assetts : Here are all the notices and dates :

Historic, Breaking News: Wednesday, February 12/13, 2013

Pope Benedict resigned to avoid arrest, seizure of church wealth by Easter –

Diplomatic Note was issued to Vatican just prior to his resignation

New Pope and Catholic clergy face indictment and arrest as “Easter Reclamation” plan continues

A Global Media Release and Statement from The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS)

Brussels:

The historically unprecedented resignation of Joseph Ratzinger as Pope this week was compelled by an upcoming action by a European government to issue an arrest warrant against Ratzinger and a public lien against Vatican property and assets by Easter.

The ITCCS Central Office in Brussels is compelled by Pope Benedict’s sudden abdication to disclose the following details:

1. On Friday, February 1, 2013, on the basis of evidence supplied by our affiliated Common Law Court of Justice (itccs.org), our Office concluded an agreement with representatives of a European nation and its courts to secure an arrest warrant against Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict, for crimes against humanity and ordering a criminal conspiracy.

2. This arrest warrant was to be delivered to the office of the “Holy See” in Rome on Friday, February 15, 2013. It allowed the nation in question to detain Ratzinger as a suspect in a crime if he entered its sovereign territory.

3. A diplomatic note was issued by the said nation’s government to the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, on Monday, February 4, 2013, informing Bertone of the impending arrest warrant and inviting his office to comply. No reply to this note was received from Cardinal Bertone or his office; but six days later, Pope Benedict resigned.

4. The agreement between our Tribunal and the said nation included a second provision to issue a commercial lien through that nation’s courts against the property and wealth of the Roman Catholic churchcommencing on Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013. This lien was to be accompanied by a public and global “Easter Reclamation Campaign” whereby Catholic church property was to be occupied and claimed by citizens as public assets forfeited under international law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

5. It is the decision of our Tribunal and the said nation’s government to proceed with the arrest of Joseph Ratzinger upon his vacating the office of the Roman Pontiff on a charge of crimes against humanity and criminal conspiracy.

6. It is our further decision to proceed as well with the indictment and arrest of Joseph Ratzinger’s successor as Pope on the same charges; and to enforce the commercial lien and “Easter Reclamation Campaign” against the Roman Catholic church, as planned.

In closing, our Tribunal acknowledges that Pope Benedict’s complicity in criminal activities of the Vatican Bank (IOR) was compelling his eventual dismissal by the highest officials of the Vatican. But according to our sources, Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone forced Joseph Ratzinger’s resignation immediately, and in direct response to the diplomatic note concerning the arrest warrant that was issued to him by the said nation’s government on February 4, 2013.

We call upon all citizens and governments to assist our efforts to legally and directly disestablish the Vatican, Inc. and arrest its chief officers and clergy who are complicit in crimes against humanity and the ongoing criminal conspiracy to aid and protect child torture and trafficking.

Further bulletins on the events of the Easter Reclamation Campaign will be issued by our Office this week.

Issued 13 February, 2013

12:00 am GMT

by the Brussels Central Office,

The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State

via ITCCS : Why the Pope retired For Real : Kevin Annett : European Governance issued an arrest warrant : and Closure and seizure of Vatican assetts : Here are all the notices and dates : « lightworkersxm.

February 14, 2013
Pilgrimage to Constantinople

The group Friends of the Holy Father recently visited Turkey. Dr Michael Straiton KCSG sends this report.

Pope Benedict XV

Despite the systematic dismantling by the Ottomans of vestiges of Christianity in Constantinople, now Istanbul, there is still much to see. 40 Friends including seven priests, led by Fr Nicholas Kavanagh, made the pilgrimage in October. We recalled several famous popes who had had experience in the City and also recalled and honoured two Fathers of the Eastern Church, St John Chrysostom and St Gregory the Theologian from Nanzianzus. We celebrated daily Mass in some of the city’s modern Catholic churches, where we were kindly welcomed by the priests who described to us their work in these flourishing parishes.

The buildings of Constantine have mostly vanished, to be replaced in the 6th century by the incomparable temples raised by the Emperor Justinian the Great. The most breathtaking of all, the Church of Haghia Sophia, Justinian’s triumph, built by him in just five years and consecrated in AD537, retains some magnificent Byzantine mosaics, whereas the church of Haghia Eirene – Holy Peace – has been stripped of decoration. The Great Palace has completely disappeared above ground, but one enormous mosaic floor preserved in situ below the Mosaics Museum, gives a glimpse of life in the Byzantine city when at the zenith of its power. The huge Column that Constantine raised to commemorate the foundation of his ‘New Rome’ in 330 survives, but is situated today in a municipal coach park.

One of the most beautiful of the Byzantine churches is Holy Saviour in Chora that was redecorated in the 14th century with unrivalled displays of mosaics and frescoes recounting episodes in the life of the Virgin Mary and her Divine Son, the finest such Byzantine works to be seen anywhere.

Several popes visited Constantinople. The first was Pope Vigilius I (537-55) who was summoned there by Justinian for doctrinal debates. A few years in 579 Pope Pellagius II sent the monk Gregory, the Abbot of St Andrew’s monastery in Rome, as his ambassador to the Imperial Court to seek military help to withstand the threat of the pagan Lombards who were endangering Rome. He stayed there for seven years but the embassy was ultimately unsuccessful and he returned to Rome. He was elected Pope in 590, later to be acclaimed as Pope St. Gregory the Great. For centuries after there was no papal visits to Constantinople.

Pope Benedict XV served his pontificate in search of peace and the relief of suffering during the First World War (1914-18), sending representatives to both sides in the quest for peace. He helped to establish a hospital on the Turkish-Syrian border where wounded Turkish soldiers were treated. On the Pope’s death in 1922 the Turkish State raised a large bronze statue in his honour in the courtyard of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Istanbul with a dedicatory plaque to the ‘benefactor of all people, regardless of nationality or religion’.

Mgr Angelo Roncalli, later to become Pope John XXIII, was apostolic nuncio to Turkey during the Second World War, 1939-45. He learned Turkish and used it in the liturgy and in official documents which earned him the respect of government officials. Turkey remained neutral and Istanbul became a centre of international intrigue and espionage. The nuncio was well placed to carry out the instructions of Pope Pius XII in the cause of peace and the relief of suffering millions. He worked closely with Chaim Barlas, the director of the Jewish Agency Rescue Committee in Istanbul, in sending the Pope’s interventions to many countries under Nazi domination. He used private couriers, Turkish diplomats, truck drivers and businessmen to carry messages and money across war-torn Europe. He sent thousands of Turkish visas, Palestinian immigration certificates, even ‘temporary’ baptismal certificates to Hungarian Jews to enable them to join those who were fleeing through Turkey to Palestine.

Pope Paul VI was the first pope in centuries to meet the heads of various Eastern Orthodox faiths. His meeting with Ecumenical Patriarch Athenogoros I in Jerusalem in 1964 led to the rescinding of the 1054 excommunications that led to the Great Schism. They met again in Istanbul in 1967 and on that occasion, on entering Haghia Sophia, the Pope dropped to his knees in prayer. This caused a furore as the building had been recognized for years as a secular museum.

One of the first visits outside Rome by Blessed Pope John Paul II was to Istanbul in 1979 to meet the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Demitrios I. The two announced the establishment of dialogue between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, the first such deliberation since the Council of Florence (1431-45).

After a visit to Haghia Sophia during his stay in Istanbul in 2006, Pope Benedict XV joined the Grand Mufti in prayer at the Blue Mosque, the second Roman Pontiff to visit an Islamic house of worship; previously Pope John Paul had visited the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.

We called at the Cathedral of St George at the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the Phanar district of Istanbul, where we followed the tradition of kissing the icon in the atrium and lighting a candle before entering. We venerated the relics of two of the most important of the eastern patriarchs, St John Chrysostom and St Gregory of Nanzianzus, both 4th century Archbishops of Constantinople. Their relics had been in Rome since the 8th century and were returned to the Patriarchate by Pope John Paul II in 2004.

One of the most famous railway lines built in the 19th century connects Paris and Venice to Istanbul for the Orient Express. We had lunch at the terminus, the marvelous Sirkeci Station, and later went to the Pera Palace Hotel, the fabulous destination of the rich and famous, including King Edward VIII, King Boris of Bulgaria who insisted on driving the train himself while it passed through his country, Ernest Hemingway, Greta Garbo and Agatha Christie. Finally in the Orient Bar we sipped and savoured our pre-prandial cocktails to the strains of evocative 20’s music.

A wonderful cruise on the Bosphorus ended at a waterfront restaurant in Üsküdur on the Asian side of the channel, where we were able to survey the magnificent skyline with so many domes, minarets and palaces of this great city – an unforgettable memory of our pilgrimage.

For more information on Friends of the Holy Father see:

November 19, 2011
World War Nears After Vatican-Knights Templar Talks Fail

by THETOTALCOLLAPSE.COM on JUNE 11, 2011

A shocking report prepared by the Russian General Staff to President Medvedev is warning today that World War III is “all but inevitable” after the Knights Templar spurned an initial payment offer of over €22.5 million against their €100 billion claim for the return of their seized assets filed in Spain against Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.

At the outset of our reporting on this dire Russian General Staff report it is imperative that the reader understand that their knowledge of truthful history is woefully inadequate to incorporate the facts herein stated, but by following the links we’ve included should give one the ability to ascertain its veracity. On the other hand, should any reader fail to follow-up our report by their own independent verification, the catastrophic events now unfolding will certainly come as the greatest shock of their lives.

As a most basic of primers we suggest that the reader of this report first read our May 8^th report “Knights Templar Prepare To Unite US-Iran For ‘Final’ World Battle” and our May 16^th report “Obama Gives ‘Sacrifice’ To Ancient ‘Sun God’ Of Mound Builders”. Though not containing all of the information one would need to thoroughly understand this report, one should be able to grasp the larger issues involved for their further studies.

Now the titanic battle currently underway in this century’s long war between the Knights Templar and the Vatican began in August, 2008 when this secretive, but very powerful, religious order filed a suit in Spain against Pope Benedict XVI for the return of the assets seized from them in 1307 by Pope Clement Vthat included more than 9,000 properties as well as countless pastures, mills and other commercial ventures and estimated to be worth today over €100 billion .

The main basis of the Knights Templar suit against Pope Benedict XVI was information contained in what is called the Chinon Parchment discovered in the Vatican archives proving that Pope Clement V secretly absolved the last Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the rest of the leadership of the Knights Templar from charges brought against them by the Medieval Inquisition. [The parchment is dated Chinon, 1308 August 17 – 20th; the Vatican keeps an authentic copy with reference number Archivum Arcis Armarium D 218, the original having the number D 217]

Spearheading the Knights Templar suit against Pope Benedict XVI was their UNESCO recognized branch located in Switzerland named the Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani, though this Russian General Staff reports the American “factions” of this order was the main cause behind this unprecedented attack on the Vatican.

In early September, 2008, this report continues, the Vatican filed a counter-claim against the Knights Templar’s suit in Spain seeking its dismissal, which was denied and set off the current global economic crisis after the Knights Templar began a ‘wholesale’ withdrawal of billions, if not trillions, of their hidden assets from both American and European banks causing many of them to collapse.

By June, 2009, the collapse of the global banking system was nearing catastrophic proportions that even the might of the United States could not forestall and leading the new US President, Barack Obama, to ‘order’ the Vatican to the negotiating table with the Knights Templar that he would personally oversee during his July, 2009 meeting with Pope Benedict XVI.

Obama further ordered to the negotiating table between the Vatican and Knights Templar a “secured payment” against the religious orders claim against Pope Benedict XVI of $134 billion in US Treasury Bonds in a move he believed would quell the growing crisis.

Unfortunately for Obama, however, the $134 billion in US Treasury Bonds bound for the meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and the Knights Templar were seized on 15 June under orders from the Vatican by Italian police and prosecutors and the two Japanese Jesuit couriers carrying the 249 US Federal Reserve bonds, each worth $500 million, plus the ten Kennedy bonds with face values of $1 billion were arrested too.

This report says that Pope Benedict XVI used his “$134 billion leverage” over Obama to gain for Rome an additional seat on the US Supreme Court, which the Vatican was successful in maneuvering when shortly after Obama’s return to the US (August, 2009) he appointed Roman Catholic Sonia Sotomayor to the High Court thus assuring Rome’s control over all US laws. [Note: in the Protestant majority US, its Supreme Court contains 6 Roman Catholics(Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, Alito, Sotomayor) and 3 Jews (Ginsberg, Breyer, Kagan)]

Important to note is this report further stating that besides Rome’s control over all American laws trough its “ownership” of the Supreme Court, the“defacto” US President is, in fact, its Jesuit “trained and controlled” Vice President Joseph Biden whose orders come directly from the German Nazi trained Pope Benedict XVI. [Note: No single Roman Catholic official was more responsible the Pope Benedict XVI for the massive global cover-up of child molestation by the Church.]

Obama, however, this report continues, is not without his own allies as aside from Persian Iran; he is, also, supported by “certain elements” associated with the Knights Templar long-embedded within the US Military establishment along with many factions associated with former Soviet and present day Communists.

Using these “allies”, this report says, and after being betrayed by Pope Benedict XVI, Obama’s communist allies in Italy launched a “counter-attack” on the Vatican by having the assets of the Catholic Church’s Institute for Religious Works (IOR) seized and their top bankers put under investigation in September, 2010.

Important to note about the IOR (mistakenly referred to as The Vatican Bank) was it’s creation on 27 June 1942 by Pope Pius XII shortly after the 4-7 June 1942 Battle of Midway where American forces delivered a crushing blow against the Roman Catholic led Japanese Empire ensuring the defeat of the Axis Forces at the hands of the Capitalist West and Communist East and a blow to the Vatican’s centuries long goal of establishing their “Global Plutocracy”. [Note:The term plutocracy is generally used to describe these two distinct concepts: one of a historical nature and one of a modern political nature. The former indicates the political control of the state by an oligarchy of the wealthy. Examples of such plutocracies include the Roman Republic, some city-states in Ancient Greece, the civilization of Carthage, the Italian city-states/merchant republics of Venice,Florence, Genoa, and pre-WWII Empire of Japan zaibatsus.]

This past week, however, and after “strident pleas” from the European Union whose economies are all crashing, Obama and his allies relented and allowed the release of $33 million in seized IOR funds to be paid to the Knights Templar as a “goodwill gesture” while negotiations continue, but which, this report says, this religious order refused as “all trust” between these warring entities have “completely and irrevocably” been broken.

All that is left now, Russia’s top generals and strategists warn, is Total GlobalWar on an “unimaginable scale” that can only be described in the most apocalyptic of terms envisioned by the Christian Bibles Book of Revelation end-time battle when the forces of Gog and Magog, along with their Arab state allies, attack Israel.

Even more grimly, Russia’s General Staff in this report further warns that the Motherland will “more than likely” have to, once again, come to the defense of the United States like she did in protecting America from its European enemies during the Civil War of 1861-1865. [Note: Unbeknownst to the vast majority of Americans, the alliance between President Abraham Lincoln and Russian Tsar Alexander II saved North America from French and British invasion on the side of the Confederates when the Motherland sent her vast fleet to protect them from the thousands of amassed troops assembled for a US invasion from Canada (British) and Mexico(France).]

To the only apparent hope left for America in this coming Global Conflict appears to lie in the 2012 Presidential contenders Mitt Romney and John Huntsman, both of whom are of the Mormon religion, and as we detailed in our January 2^nd report “2012 ‘White Horse Prophecy’ Warned Is Coming True In America” remain the only power left in America to counter Rome and its allies seeking the destruction of the United States.

Interesting to note about the Mormon religions ties with the Knights Templar Order are the many legends that the “golden plates” discovered by their founder Joseph Smith Jr. and that began their religious order were, in fact, those discovered by the Knights Templar when they conquered Jerusalem.

Even more interesting to note about all of these events were their being predicted with the 1912 publication in the US of the ex-Roman Catholic priest Jeremiah Crowley’s book “Romanism: A Menace to the Nation” wherein he laid plain for all to see how the Vatican planned to destroy the United States and the Western world….by the year…2012. [Note: This link to Father Crowley’s book goes to the complete 714 page version digitalized by the University of Southern California.]

Most unfortunate in all of this report is how few American people even have the knowledge of their own past history to comprehend it and put it into context, leaving for them, instead, a future that is, and will remain, totally incomprehensible to them as they slide ever closer to the abyss.

© June 5, 2011 EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source atWhatDoesItMean.Com.

http://www.thetotalcollapse.com/world-war-nears-after-vatican-knights-templar-talks-fail/

July 25, 2011
Pope wanted Muslim Turkey kept out of EU

WikiLeaks cables: Pope wanted Muslim Turkey kept out of EU

Vatican diplomats also lobbied against Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and wanted ‘Christian roots’ enshrined in EU constitution

Heather Brooke and Andrew Brown

guardian.co.uk, Friday 10 December 2010 21.30 GMT

A WikiLeaks cable reports that Pope Benedict XVI, seen here being received by Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara in 2006, 'might prefer to see Turkey develop a special relationship short of EU membership'. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/AFP/Getty Images

The pope is responsible for the Vatican’s growing hostility towards Turkey joining the EU, previously secret cables sent from the US embassy to the Holy See in Rome claim.

In 2004 Cardinal Ratzinger, the future pope, spoke out against letting a Muslim state join, although at the time the Vatican was formally neutral on the question.

The Vatican’s acting foreign minister, Monsignor Pietro Parolin, responded by telling US diplomats that Ratzinger’s comments were his own rather than the official Vatican position.

The cable released by WikiLeaks shows that Ratzinger was the leading voice behind the Holy See’s unsuccessful drive to secure a reference to Europe’s “Christian roots” in the EU constitution. The US diplomat noted that Ratzinger “clearly understands that allowing a Muslim country into the EU would further weaken his case for Europe’s Christian foundations”.

But by 2006 Parolin was working for Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and his tone had distinctly chilled. “Neither the pope nor the Vatican have endorsed Turkey’s EU membership per se,” he told the American charge d’affaires, “rather, the Holy See has been consistently open to accession, emphasising only that Turkey needs to fulfil the EU’s Copenhagen criteria to take its place in Europe.”

But he did not expect the demands on religious freedom to be fulfilled: “One great fear is that Turkey could enter the EU without having made the necessary advances in religious freedom. [Parolin] insisted that EU members – and the US – continue to press the [Turkish government] on these issues … He said that short of ‘open persecution’, it couldn’t get much worse for the Christian community in Turkey.”

The cables reveal the American government lobbying within Rome and Ankara for Turkish EU membership. “We hope a senior department official can visit the Holy See and encourage them to do more to push a positive message on Turkey and integration,” concluded the 2006 cable.

But by 2009, the American ambassador was briefing in advance of President Barack Obama’s visit, that “the Holy See’s position now is that as a non-EU member the Vatican has no role in promoting or vetoing Turkey’s membership. The Vatican might prefer to see Turkey develop a special relationship short of membership with the EU.”

Roman Catholicism is the only religion in the world with the status of a sovereign state, allowing the pope’s most senior clerics to sit at the top table with world leaders. The cables reveal the Vatican routinely wielding influence through diplomatic channels while sometimes denying it is doing so. The Vatican has diplomatic relations with 177 countries and has used its diplomatic status to lobby the US, United Nations and European Union in a concerted bid to impose its moral agenda through national and international parliaments.

The US charge d’affaires D Brent Hardt told Parolin, his diplomatic counterpart in Rome, of “the Holy See’s potential to influence Catholic countries to support a ban on human cloning” to which Parolin emphasised his agreement with the US position and promised to support fully UN efforts for such a ban.

On other global issues such as climate change, the Vatican sought to use its moral authority as leverage, while refusing itself to sign formal treaties, such as the Copenhagen accord, that require reporting commitments.

At a meeting in January this year Dr Paolo Conversi, the pope’s representative on climate change at the Vatican’s secretariat of state, told an American diplomat that the Vatican would “encourage other countries discreetly to associate themselves with the accord as opportunities arise”.

The Americans noted that Conversi’s offer to support the US, even if discreetly, was significant because the Vatican was often reluctant to appear to compromise its independence and moral authority by associating itself with particular lobbying efforts.

“Even more important than the Vatican’s lobbying assistance, however, is the influence the pope’s guidance can have on public opinion in countries with large Catholic majorities and beyond.”

The cables also reveal that the Vatican planned to use Poland as a trojan horse to spread Catholic family values through the structures of the European Union in Brussels.

The then US ambassador to the Holy See, Francis Rooney, briefed Washington in 2006, shortly after the election of Pope Benedict XVI, that “the Holy See hopes that Poland will hold the line at the EU on ‘life and family’ issues that arise” and would serve as a counterweight to western European secularism once the country had integrated into the EU.

The cable notes that Pope Benedict is preoccupied with Europe’s increasing psychological distance from its Christian roots.

“He has continued to focus on Poland’s potential in combating this trend. This was one of the themes of the visit of several groups of Polish bishops to the Vatican at the end of last year [2005]. ‘It’s a topic that always comes up,’ explained Monsignor Michael Banach, the Holy See minister of foreign affairs country director for Poland. He told us that the two sides recognised that the Polish bishops needed to exert leadership in the face of western European secularism.”

Across the Atlantic, the Vatican has told the Americans it wants to undermine the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, in Latin America because of worries about the deterioration of Catholic power there. It fears Chávez is seriously damaging relations between the Catholic church and the state by identifying the church hierarchy as part of the privileged class.

Monsignor Angelo Accattino, in charge of Caribbean and Andean matters for the Vatican, said Obama should reach out to Cuba “in order to reduce the influence of Chávez and break up his cabal in Latin America”.In December last year, America’s adviser for western Europe at the UN, Robert Smolik, said the Vatican observer was “as always active and influential behind the scenes” and “lobbied actively and influentially in the corridors and in informal consultations, particularly on social issues”.

In 2001 another American diplomat to the Vatican stated: “The Holy See will continue to seek to play a role in the Middle East peace process while denying this intention.” (1792)

December 11, 2010
Rome Archaeologists ‘Find St Paul’s Remains’

29 June 2009

Nick Pisa, in Rome

Bone fragments found in a Rome basilica are said to belong to St Paul, Pope Benedict XVI has said.

The analysis was carried out after a tiny probe was pushed through into the tomb beneath the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, which is said to have been built on the site where he was buried.

Vatican archaeologists uncovered the tomb in 2006 in a crypt under the basilica and said the fact that it was positioned exactly underneath the epigraph “Paulo Apostolo Mart” (meaning “Paul the Apostle and Martyr”) at the base of the main altar was conclusive proof that it was his final resting place.

The tomb also has a hole in the top through which which pieces of cloth could be pushed, touching the relic and becoming holy in their turn.

There has been a shrine on the site since the 3rd Century after the Emperor Constantine consecrated a basilica at the spot where, according to Christian tradition, Paul’s body was buried in a vineyard by a Roman woman.

Pope Benedict said: “The sarcophagus under the altar dedicated to St Paul has recently been the object of detailed scientific analysis.

“It had not been opened in centuries and a tiny hole was made in it, through which a special probe was passed which found traces of a precious purple lined, decorated with gold sequins and a blue fabric with linen.

“Within the sarcophagus were also tiny bony fragments and these were put through carbon 14 testing by experts who did not know where they were from and they revealed that they were from a person who lived during the 1st or 2nd Century AD.

“This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul. All this fills our souls with deep emotion.”

Monday is the feast of St Peter and Paul, who are the patron saints of Rome and a bank holiday in the city, and the news was expected to attract increased visitors to the basilica.

It was the second announcement from the Vatican regarding St Paul in as many days – earlier it was revealed that the oldest known icon of the saint had been found in a nearby catacomb.

Experts said the icon – which showed the traditional image of St Paul, with large eyes, sunken features and a long beard – was from the 4th Century AD.

St Paul was a Roman Jew, born in Tarsus in modern-day Turkey, who started out persecuting Christians but later became one of the greatest influences in the Church.

He did not know Jesus in life but converted to Christianity after seeing a shining light on the road to Damascus and spent much of his life travelling and preaching.

St Paul wrote 14 letters to Churches which he founded or visited. His epistles tell Christians what they should believe and how they should live but do not say much about Jesus’ life and teachings.

He was executed for his beliefs around AD 65 and is thought to have been beheaded, rather than crucified, because he was a Roman citizen.

SKY

June 29, 2009