Pope John Paul I will be a short one". On the balcony of St Peter's Basilica, protodeacon Cardinal Pericle Felici announced that the cardinals had elected Albino Luciani, Patriarch of Venice, who had chosen the name Pope John Paul I. It was the first time that a pope chose a double name. He later explained that the double name was taken to gratefully honour his two immediate predecessors: John XXIII, who had named him a bishop, and Paul VI, who had named him Patriarch of Venice and Cardinal. He was also the first pope to designate himself "the First" with the name. (Pope Francis,
Pope John Paul II War II, the first pope to do so. In 1998, he issued "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah", which outlined his thinking on the Holocaust. He became the first pope known to have made an official papal visit to a synagogue, when he visited the Great Synagogue of Rome on 13 April 1986. On 30 December 1993, John Paul II established formal diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the State of Israel, acknowledging its centrality in Jewish life and faith. On 7 April 1994, he hosted the "Papal Concert to Commemorate the Holocaust". It was the first-ever Vatican