1000 Meticais Visit of Pope John Paul II

John Paul II visited Mozambique in September 1988, making him the first pope to set foot in the country. The visit was politically charged — Mozambique was a self-declared Marxist state under Frelimo, and the government's willingness to receive the pope reflected the regime's gradual drift away from hard-line ideology as the brutal civil war with Renamo ground into its second decade.

Copper-nickel commemoratives of this type were issued primarily for export sale rather than domestic circulation, as 1000 meticais represented a significant sum in a country with one of the lowest GDPs per capita on earth at the time.