By Barbara Plett in Damascus
The Pope's visit to the Umayyad mosque in the Syrian capital Damascus was an historic highlight on his three-nation tour retracing the steps of Saint Paul.
Pope John Paul II began the day with an open-air mass for some 35,000 people at the city's Abbasid stadium.
As he entered the building on Sunday he was carried along by enthusiastic cheers from tens of thousands of people. They waved Vatican and Syrian flags and raised banners of welcome.