The world’s largest statue of John Paul II is unveiled in the Miniature Park in Czestochowa, Poland.
AFP/Czestochowa, Poland
The world’s tallest statue of late pope John Paul II was unveiled yesterday in the Polish city of Czestochowa, already home to a Catholic icon believed to work miracles.
The heavily Catholic country’s tribute to its pontiff, who died in 2005, shows him with arms outstretched and all in white save for a gold cross around his neck.
It weighs 10 tonnes and is 13.8m (45.3’) high, surpassing the 12m likeness in Chile, project originator Leszek Lyson told AFP in the southern city.
The statue (pictured) stands paradoxically in a miniature park, which includes reproductions of sacred sites like the Lourdes shrine in France.
Lyson met Karol Wojtyla in the 1960s before he took on his papal name in 1978.