VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Denied a chance to visit the birthplace of Biblical patriarch Abraham in present-day Iraq, Pope John Paul II prayed in a ceremony at the Vatican Wednesday and watched a film of the desert site.

The pope called the special ceremony a ``spiritual pilgrimage'' to honor the memory of ``our father in faith.''

The ceremony came a day before the pope departs for Egypt, with a stop at the foot of Mount Sinai, the first of his millennium trips to Biblical sites in the Middle East.

John Paul had hoped to begin the tour in Ur, an ancient city believed to be the birthplace of Abraham. But the Iraqi trip fell through in December when Baghdad balked, telling the Vatican it was unable to organize the stop.

Instead, John Paul presided over a ceremony including Biblical readings that the pope followed intently from a red throne on a stage, against a backdrop of ruins.

``This will be the first leg of that pilgrimage to sites linked to the history of salvation that I will continue tomorrow leaving for Egypt and Mount Sinai,'' John Paul said.

The frail 79-year-old pope appeared in fair form, first presiding over his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square before moving to the Paul VI Auditorium. His voice was clear but his hands trembled, a symptom of Parkinson's disease.

In addition to Egypt, John Paul will visit the Holy Land in March.

The Iraq trip fell through in December, when Iraqi officials told the Vatican they could not organize the trip because of the U.N. embargo and the no-fly zone.

Since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, allied warplanes have been patrolling so-called no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq. The country is under U.N. sanctions for having invaded Kuwait.

The pope says his millennium pilgrimages are purely spiritual in nature, and no political significance should be attached.