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Poland donates Christmas tree to Vatican

PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek 29.10.2017 08:37
A 28-metre-tall spruce from a forest in north-eastern Poland will adorn St. Peter’s Square in Rome this Christmas season.
St. Peter's Square, Vatican City. Photo: Diliff [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsSt. Peter's Square, Vatican City. Photo: Diliff [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The tree will be presented to Pope Francis by a group of Poles on 7 December and put up in the square in a special ceremony that afternoon.

The tradition of erecting a Christmas tree in the Vatican was introduced in 1982 while the head of the Church was Polish Pope John Paul II.

The tree comes from a different country each year. Poland has been chosen for the second time. In 1997, the Christmas tree was brought to Rome from the Tatra resort of Zakopane as a thanksgiving of Polish highlanders for the Pope’s visit to Poland's south earlier that year.

The Christmas tree, along with a life-sized nativity scene, will stay in St.Peter’s Square until 7 January, the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus, which ends the liturgical season of Christmas. (mk/vb/pk)

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