ATHENS, Greece The kiss lasted just a few seconds when it finally happened. But it had generated days of confusion and concern.
Pope John Paul II arrived in Athens on Friday and performed the traditional ceremony of kissing the soil of a country he visits for the first time. It was done quickly and without fanfare: he pressed his lips for an instant onto a basket ringed with olive branches and holding soil from a garden at the Holy Cross Convent outside Athens.
The gesture was simple. Putting it together was not. Even on the eve of the pope’s visit, it was unclear whether he would break a tradition started with his world travels in 1979.
Local Roman Catholic organizers worried the papal kiss would further enrage Greek Orthodox activists, who have led protests denouncing the presence of the pope on the “sacred soil” of Greece. Some Greeks proposed the pope receive only an olive branch and flowers.
The Vatican said no. The pope would not alter his plans for the kiss, it demanded.
So John Paul was met by two Roman Catholic children dressed in Greek folk costumes. He smiled, took the hand of 6-year-old Christos Harikopoulos and kissed the soil.
But crowds blocked much of the media from seeing the ceremony.
“Did he do it?” a reporter cried.
A nun carrying the basket from the airport said: “He did.”
