Britain’s King Charles and Pope Leo XIV prayed side by side inside the Sistine Chapel on Thursday, October 23 the first joint act of worship between an English monarch and a Catholic pope since King Henry VIII’s break from Rome nearly 500 years ago.
Latin chants and English prayers filled the chapel where Pope Leo, the first U.S.-born pontiff, was elected six months ago. King Charles, as supreme governor of the Church of England, was seated to the pope’s left near the altar as the two were joined by Anglican Archbishop Stephen Cottrell, the Sistine Chapel Choir, and two royal choirs in a rare ecumenical service.
While Charles has previously met three popes and two pontiffs have visited Britain none of those encounters ever included a shared act of prayer.
The King and Queen Camilla are in the Vatican for a state visit celebrating the strengthening relationship between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, five centuries after their historic split.
Anglican Rev. James Hawkey, canon theologian at Westminster Abbey, called the moment “a kind of healing of history.” Speaking to reporters, he said, “This would have been unthinkable just a generation ago. It shows how far both churches have come over the last 60 years of dialogue.”
The split between the two churches was formalized in 1534 when Pope Clement VII refused to annul Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. The break led to centuries of tension, persecution, and religious conflict across England.
Earlier on Thursday, Charles and Camilla held a private meeting with Pope Leo before the King traveled to the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, one of Catholicism’s four major basilicas. There, Pope Leo conferred on the monarch the honorary title of “Royal Confrater” or brother of the connected abbey.
Charles was also presented with a specially crafted wooden chair in the basilica’s apse, reserved for use by future British monarchs. The seat bears the King’s coat of arms and the Latin motto “Ut unum sint” (“That they may be one”) a reference to the shared Christian call for unity.
Bishop Anthony Ball, the Anglican representative to the Vatican, said the gestures “reflect the growing commitment of both churches to work toward a common Christian witness.”
King Charles III assisting the Divine Office led by Pope Leo XIV in the Sistine Chapel, the first time a British monarch has partaken in a religious service with the Bishop of Rome since 855, when Æthelwulf, King of Wessex, was in Rome for the inauguration of Pope Leo IV. pic.twitter.com/L1qc22jaqk
— Catholic Sat (@CatholicSat) October 23, 2025
Buckingham Palace confirmed that Charles had, in turn, awarded two British honors to Pope Leo: naming him “Papal Confrater” of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and bestowing on him the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.
The Catholic Church, with 1.4 billion members worldwide, and the Anglican Communion, with around 85 million, have steadily deepened their cooperation since the 1960s through shared initiatives in faith, education, and humanitarian work.
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