There was onlyone previous case in the Holy Year of 1700, which was opened by Innocent XII and ended by Clement XI.
But the low point of 2025 also marked its turning point.
After the months-long vacuum by Francis' weakness, hospital stay and dying, a new beginning was possible - on 8th. May Pope Leo XIV was (s)elected.
Many of the approximately 40 special meetings for the Holy Year, which were partly cancelled by the absence of Pope Francis from mid-February, were again possible in full breadth and beauty.
While the influx was rather slow in the spring, since Easter the people crowded in the pilgrimage lane between the newly created Piazza Pia at the Castel Sant'Angelo and the Vatican - and practically consistently until the end.
German-speaking institutions in Rome such as the municipality of Santa Maria dell'Anima and the Campo Santo Teutonico on St. Peter's Basilica also washed up many additional visitors throughout the Holy Year.
56 wars worldwide
Archbishop Rino Fisichella, Holy Year's commissioner of the Pope, speaks in the face of the pilgrimage flows from all over the world symbolically of a living church along the way.
"We as Christians must be true 'pilgrims of hope' in a world shaken by 56 wars," he alludes to the motto of the Holy Year. And: The mega-event shows people's great longing for spirituality, he told the newspaper "Avvenire".
At the same time, it relies on the political consequences of the festive year. Almost every weekend there were thematic special meetings, for example for the poor, the prisoners, for governments, priests, deacons, employees in the health sector, in justice or the media, for choirs, athletes, influencers, for families, young people and senior citizens.
Among other things, the Pope called for forms of punishment for prisoners, the settlement of the ecological guilt of the rich towards the poor countries and the end of war, violence and injustices.
Fisichella hopes that these impulses will also be reflected at the parliamentary level.
New "Room of Listening" in St. Peter's Basilica
The Vatican itself reacted to people's changed expectations of the Church: in September, a "room of listening" was created in St. Peter's Basilica. In a simple cabin in the left side nave, you can pour out your heart to priests, religious or lay people about problems and existential questions at certain times.
The secretary of the cathedral building hut of St. Peter's Basilica, Orazio Pepe, calls this a new form of opening up within the framework of the Holy Year - for every person, whether with or without religious attachment.
In doing so, the Vatican responded to the crowds of visitors who, by no means, crossed the Holy Door not only as devout pilgrims. Already in mid-December, the organizers put their number at 32 million; until the closure of the gate on 6. January is likely to have been 35 million, and yet so many, as the Italian government representative of the Holy Year, Rome's mayor Roberto Gualtieri, had estimated.
On the Millennium Anniversary 2000, "only" 25 million people came, at the extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy in 2016 it was 20 million.
1.2 million young people
The figures were also gigantic at the Holy Year meeting of the youth: at the beginning of August, according to Fisichella, 1.2 million young people gathered on a site southeast of the Roman center to celebrate themselves, the Pope and their faith - significantly less than the two million who cheered Pope John Paul II there in the Holy Year 2000.
But this is due to the reality of another church and another generation of young Catholics, according to the pro-prefect of the Vatican evangelization authority.
Meanwhile, the Holy Year is almost over, and Leo has clearly gained self-assurance in appearance. "Now that the anniversary is coming to a close, Christmas is a time of gratitude and broadcast for us," he said on Christmas Eve. “Gratitude for the gift received; mission to witness to the world.”
Close the Holy Door no end point
For Christians, work is only just beginning. They are supposed to carry what they would have experienced in the Holy Year into their everyday lives; spread hope where hatred, despair, targeted disinformation, injustice and fear of the future reign.
"The closing of the Holy Door is not a conclusion," emphasizes the Holy Year's Representative of the German Bishops' Conference, Auxiliary Bishop Rolf Lohmann: "It goes on! The Holy Year is longer than it took.”
Especially since Leo XIV has already announced the "Holy Year of Salvation" for 2033, in memory of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago.
The Pope wishes that not only Catholics, but all Christian denominations, should bear witness to the faith and unity: at a large meeting in Jerusalem.
"The two millennia since salvation must be prepared and experienced by the Church with unprecedented intensity," Archbishop Fisichella insists. So it's already said: roll up sleeves for the next Holy Year.