Pope John Paul told Bulgaria's president on Friday that he never believed allegations that there was a Bulgarian connection to the 1981 attempt on his life, a Vatican spokesman said. "I never believed in the so-called Bulgarian connection because of my great esteem and respect for the Bulgarian people," the Pope told President Georgi Parvanov in an official meeting, according to papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.

It was the first time John Paul has publicly expressed his view about lingering suspicions that Bulgarian secret agents were behind Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca's shooting of the Pope in St. Peter's Square in Rome on May 13, 1981. An Italian court acquitted three Bulgarians of complicity, citing a lack of evidence.

Bulgarian agents had been suspected of working for the Soviet KGB, said at the time to have been alarmed by John Paul's support for the Solidarity trade union in his native Poland.

Many Bulgarians had hoped that John Paul's visit - the first-ever to this former communist country by a Pope - would finally dispel the allegations.
In his arrival speech Thursday, the Pope said he had "never ceased" to love the Bulgarian people.
"We had no interest in killing a Pope. It's an absurd notion," said Petar Iliev, a 61-year-old Sofia retiree.

The Pope visited Sofia's main Orthodox cathedral Friday, and was to meet later with Patriarch Maxim, the leader of Bulgaria's Orthodox Christians and a feisty cleric who until recently had repeatedly snubbed the pontiff by refusing to see him. The meeting was the Pope's latest effort to break down traditional barriers between the world's major religions and focus instead on the common values that bind them.

Icy relations between the Vatican and the Orthodox Church, which is suspicious of Roman Catholic expansion into traditionally Orthodox countries, have blocked the ailing pontiff's hopes of visiting Russia. On his visit to predominantly Orthodox Bulgaria, John Paul is reaching out to a faith that has at times reviled him.

"With respect I greet His Holiness Patriarch Maxim," the Pope said Thursday. "I fervently hope that my visit will serve to increase our knowledge of each other."

Melting the ice in Bulgaria, one of the former Soviet Union's most fiercely loyal satellites, could help pave the way for the visit to Russia that the Pope has sought for so long.

Thousands of cheering people lined the Pope's motorcade route Thursday, even though only 80,000 of Bulgaria's eight million people are Catholics and many have viewed the visit with a studied nonchalance. A recent survey suggested that fewer than one in three Bulgarians has a real understanding of who the Pope is.

"I am absolutely indifferent," declared Mariyka Andonova, 52, a Sofia physician. "On one hand, it puts Bulgaria on the map. But on the other, an enormous amount of money is being spent on security for the Pope - money that could be used to help aging retirees. I don't appreciate that."

For years, Maxim refused to meet with the Pope, thwarting numerous efforts by the Bulgarian government to organize a visit, which the Vatican said it would consent to only if Orthodox leaders would welcome it. He relented in March.

Maxim attended Thursday's papal welcome ceremony, although he made it clear that he didn't want the Pope's visit to Sofia's main Orthodox cathedral to coincide with Friday's services there.

The 82-year-old Pope's four-day visit is a major test of his stamina. His current trip began in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, where the pontiff's breathing was audibly laboured and he was unable to finish his sermons, instead passing the texts to an aide.

John Paul's speech is often slurred and his hands tremble - symptoms of Parkinson's disease - and he walks with difficulty because of knee and hip ailments. For the first time, a motorized platform was used for him to get on and off the papal aircraft so he wouldn't have to climb steps.

But on Thursday, he showed a bit of strength and spirit, walking a few brisk steps with a cane, standing through the Bulgarian and Vatican anthems and beginning his welcome address with a clear voice and a joke about his age.