On May 13, 1981, an attack was carried out on the square „Sveti Peter” in the Vatican against Pope John Paul II.
While going to the square, the Pope was shot and seriously wounded by Mehmed Ali Agca from Turkey, who is a member of a nationalist Turkish organization „The Gray Wolves”.
The Pope was hit four times and suffered the loss of a large amount of blood, but according to him the Holy Virgin saved him, he survived and recovered from the attempt. Agca was immediately detained and later sentenced to life in prison by an Italian court. At the request of the Pope, Agca was pardoned by Italian President Carlo Ciampi in 2000, but was repatriated to a Turkish prison where he served time for the murder of a Turkish journalist, for which he was convicted in his homeland, and was subsequently released.
According to Agdzha's testimony, three more Turks were accused of complicity in the preparation of the attack and Bulgarian citizens were arrested. The accusation against the Bulgarians („Bulgarian trace“) is exploited in the West to deploy a wide propaganda campaign against the entire socialist camp. In 1985, in Rome, the leader of the „Grey Wolves”, stated to the media that he was offered 3 million German marks by German intelligence to blame Bulgarian and Russian intelligence for the attack.
At the invitation of the Bulgarian state and the Catholic community in the country, the head of the Roman Catholic Church arrived in Bulgaria. This high-profile visit is of great importance for the country, as it definitively refutes the insinuations with the „Bulgarian trail“ in the attack. Pope John Paul himself, during his meeting with President Parvanov, openly stated that he never believed that Bulgaria was involved in the attack.