80th birthday of Pope Benedikt XVI. - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 2007 - 55 Euro Cent

The special stamp, with the Germany Pope Benedict XVI. was issued on April 12, 2007, four days before the church's 80th birthday. Benedict XVI. was born on April 16, 1927 as Joseph Alois Ratzinger in Marktl am Inn in the Upper Bavarian district of Altötting. He received the sacrament of Holy Orders in 1951. In 1977 he became Archbishop of Munich and Freising and only a little later Cardinal. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he took part in the two conclaves that elected John Paul I and John Paul II Pope, and held influential offices in the Vatican. On April 19, 2005, the Cardinals elected him as the successor of John Paul II for the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and thus the head of some 700 million believers and the sovereign of the Vatican. Benedict XVI. is the first German Pope for nearly half a millennium (after Hadrian VI., who was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands in 1459, and thus came from the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation"). Already two trips abroad led Benedikt XVI. in his home country: In August 2005 he visited the World Youth Day in Cologne, in September 2006, the Bavarian cities of Munich, Altötting and Regensburg and his birthplace Marktl.