Britain’s King Charles and Pope Leo have prayed together in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, in the first joint worship including an English monarch and a Catholic pontiff since King Henry VIII broke away from Rome in 1534.
Latin chants and English prayers echoed through the chapel, where Leo was elected the first US Pope by the world’s Catholic cardinals six months ago.
Charles, supreme governor of the Church of England, was seated at the Pope’s left near the altar of the chapel as Leo and Anglican Archbishop Stephen Cottrell led a service that featured the Sistine Chapel Choir and two royal choirs.
In past meetings with the last three popes, King Charles has never participated in joint prayers—until now. This change marks a significant milestone in the relationship between their churches.
The King and Queen Camilla are on a state visit to the Vatican marking the closening ties between the Catholic Church and Anglican Communion, five centuries after their turbulent separation.
“There is a strong sense that this moment in the extraordinary setting of the Sistine Chapel offers a kind of healing of history,” Reverend James Hawkey, canon theologian of Westminster Abbey, said.
“This would have been impossible just a generation ago,” he said.
“This symbolizes the progress our churches have achieved over six decades of dialogue,” noted a church representative.
The split between the Catholic Church and the Church of England was formalised in 1534, after Pope Clement VII refused to annul King Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
Charles and Camilla, who visited the Vatican earlier this year to see Pope Francis, also had a private meeting with Leo on Thursday.
Later in the day, the King is set to visit the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, one of the four most esteemed churches in Catholicism. There, Pope Leo has sanctioned the conferral of a new title upon him: Royal Confrater, or brother, at the associated abbey.
Charles will also be gifted a special seat in the apse of the basilica. The wooden chair, reserved in the future for use only by British monarchs, is decorated with the king’s coat of arms and the ecumenical motto “Ut unum sint” (That they may be one).
Bishop Anthony Ball, the official Anglican representative to the Vatican said the honours “show the commitment that both of our Churches have to working for a shared future.”
Buckingham Palace announced that Charles had also approved two British honours for Leo: making him the Papal Confrater of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle and conferring on him the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.
