Pope John Paul will tour the Holy Land in the second half of March 2000, the Vatican has confirmed.
The Pope has long wished to make a pilgrimage to the most important sites of the Old and New Testaments. His visit will be one of the most historic of his 21-year pontificate, during which he has travelled hundreds of thousands of miles to more than 100 countries.
The announcement was made yesterday at a Vatican news conference on the timetable for the 79-year-old Pope and the Vatican during celebrations to mark the third millennium of Christianity.
The Vatican's celebrations start on December 24th and end on January 6th, 2001.
"The Apostolic trip to the Holy Land . . . is expected to take place in the last 10 days of March. The precise dates have not been set," Archbishop Cresenzio Sepe said.
The Pope has been invited to visit Holy Land sites in Israel and sites ruled by the Palestinian Authority.
Pope Paul VI visited the Holy Land in 1964.
Archbishop Sepe said after the news conference that the Pope was expected to visit Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Mount of the Beatitudes and Jerusalem.
In a 19-page letter in June, the Pope also listed Mount Sinai in Egypt and Ur, the ancient city in Mesopotamia where Abraham was born.
Churches in the Holy Land have said they will shut for two days next week to protest at plans by Israel for a mosque to be built near the main Christian shrine in Nazareth, the Church of the Annunciation.
The mosque dispute has cast a cloud over the Pope's planned visit and the chief Vatican spokesman, Dr Joaquin Navarro-Valls, last month described the building plans as a "hindrance" to a trip.