Poland to unveil giant statue of Pope John Paul II

PanARMENIAN.Net - Poland is set to unveil a giant statue of Pope John Paul II, said to be the tallest of the former pontiff anywhere in the world, BBC News reported.

Weighing five tons, the 13.8m (45-ft) white fibreglass statue shows the pope standing with outstretched arms. It stands on a hill above the city of Czestochowa in southern Poland.

The city is home to the country's most important pilgrimage site, the Jasna Gora monastery, and its icon of the Black Madonna.

A choir, an archbishop and an actor who will read from selected texts written by the Polish pope, are scheduled to take part in Saturday's unveiling ceremony.

Constructed around a steel framework, the statue has been built by a company that manufactures fibreglass statues such as ones of dinosaurs you see in theme parks, says the BBC's Adam Easton in Warsaw.

The man funding the project, Leszek Lyson, said he wanted to give thanks to John Paul II for the life of his son, whom Lyson saved from drowning during a family holiday in Croatia three years ago.

Poland is one of the most Roman Catholic countries in Europe but the statue has not won universal acclaim, adds our correspondent. A protest campaign has been launched on the social networking site Facebook because the pope is facing away from the city.

And Czestochowa's architects' association says the fibreglass structure lacks quality.

Born Karol Wojtyla in Wadowice, the 58-year-old Archbishop of Krakow's election as pope in 1978 stunned the Catholic world.

The first non-Italian pope in more than 450 years, he went on to become one of the world's most familiar faces in the world, visiting more than 120 countries in a 27-year pontificate that earned him a reputation as an international fighter for freedom.

He died aged 84 in 2005 after a long illness. He was beatified - the penultimate step towards sainthood - in 2011.