Poland: This weekend Poles mark the first anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II, writes Daniel McLaughlin.
Candles and flowers for Pope John Paul II bedecked churches across Poland yesterday, as the late pontiff's compatriots prepared for tomorrow's anniversary of his death.
In the capital Warsaw, the southern city of Krakow where Karol Wojtyla was archbishop, and the little town of Wadowice where he was born on May 18th, 1920, Poles prayed for a man who inspired their resistance to communist rule and Soviet domination.
Across this overwhelmingly Catholic country of 39 million, evening services were dedicated to John Paul ahead of a weekend of events to mark his death, which ultimately came in his Vatican apartment after a long illness, at 9.37pm on April 2nd, 2005.
At that time tomorrow, church bells will ring throughout Poland and Pope Benedict will recite a rosary for his predecessor from his window overlooking St Peter's Square in the Vatican, where millions of people bade farewell to John Paul last year.
In Krakow's historic Wawel Cathedral, where Karol Wojtyla was ordained as a priest in November 1946, a Mass will be said for him tonight by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, his private secretary for almost all of a pontificate that began in 1978.
Tomorrow, a torch lit from a candle at the pope's tomb beneath St Peter's will be given to Cardinal Dziwisz, by athletes who have carried it from the Vatican to Poland.
"Last year I was here with a candle praying for the pope," said student Maria Pekarska yesterday near the Krakow Curia where Karol Wojtyla lived as archbishop of the city.
"I was here when news came through that he had died, and I will be praying for him again this weekend."
A special Mass will also be said just south of Krakow in the town of Wadowice, where the Wojtyla family home is now a museum to John Paul, and his vestments are displayed alongside the skis he loved to use in the nearby mountains.
Prayers will be said there at 9.37pm tomorrow, at the same time that worshippers in Krakow will be linked by video screen to the Vatican, where more than a thousand Poles are expected to join a congregation of worshippers from around the world. Tens of thousands of Poles have visited John Paul's tomb since his death, but they have also warmed to Pope Benedict and eagerly await his planned trip to Poland in May.
"There were predictions that after the death of John Paul II, the church in Poland would collapse because we are so linked to this one person," said Adam Boniecki, editor of the influential Catholic newspaper Tygodnik Powszechny. "But we see that this link is much richer and deeper than simply the link to this late pope. Before John Paul II, there wasn't a tradition of Polish pilgrimages to the Vatican," he added. "This is a new phenomenon. They go to the tomb of John Paul, but also to be near Benedict - in a sense to encounter both popes."
Many Poles hope Benedict will use his visit here to announce the beatification of John Paul - marking a crucial step on the road to sainthood - and await the crucial verdict of a Vatican committee investigating a miracle that is attributed to the late pope. Slawomir Oder, a Polish cleric on the committee, recently interviewed a French nun who claims to have recovered from Parkinson's disease after praying to John Paul. "Exactly two months after the death of the pope, from one minute to the next, the nun didn't show the symptoms of the illness any more," said Mgr Oder.
"According to the criteria of human science, the doctor couldn't explain what had happened," he added, while sounding the warning: "The road is long, there's still a lot of work to do." In Krakow, few doubt that Poland's favourite son should quickly be made a saint.
"Everyone called for it to happen last year when he died," said teacher Boleslaw Racek, recalling how the crowds on St Peter's Square chanted "Santo Subito! - Sainthood now!" - at John Paul's funeral.
"He was a special person for Poland and the world."