Establishment of the Shrine

In January 2022, Father Greg Skulski, parish priest from Gosford Parish, approached Most Reverend Anthony Randazzo, Bishop of Broken Bay, seeking permission to obtain the first-class relic, with a vision to establish a shrine at St Patrick’s Church, East Gosford.

On Divine Mercy Sunday, 24 April 2022, Bishop Anthony announced the relic would be installed.

The relic of St John Paul II installed in the shrine at St. Patrick’s Church, East Gosford is a First Class Relic, a collection of strands of his hair. These were collected when Saint John Paul II was in residence as Pope in the Vatican, and were kept by Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki in Lviv, Ukraine. It will be the first permanent Shrine of St John Paul II to be housed in Australia.