A great historian of the Church traces a portrait of Paul VI in which it clearly emerges that his papacy was the most attentive, throughout the last century, to the reality of the Church in the world. Paul VI has been able to help the behavior of Christians under different regimes and even under the most bloody dictatorships. Montini showed great willingness even in tragic situations, exercising a capacity for advice and mediation that was able to avoid violent consequences. His work at the Vatican Council was courageous and at the same time prudent. The meeting with Athenagoras healed a secular wound with the Orthodox Church. Paul VI was perhaps the Pope who knew most how to intervene in situations of suffering in the world.