Pope and King to pray together in Sistine Chapel service

The ecumenical prayer service for the care of creation will be the first time a pope and a British monarch have prayed together in public since the Reformation.

The King will pray publicly alongside the Pope during a state visit to the Vatican next week.

Pope Leo and the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell will lead an ecumenical prayer service for the care of creation in the Sistine Chapel on 23 October, attended by the King and Queen.

That afternoon the royal couple will visit the Basilica and Abbey of St Paul Outside the Walls, where the basilica’s archpriest Cardinal James Harvey and Abbot Donato Ogliari OSB will name the King a “royal confrater of St Paul”.

“This will be the first state visit, since the Reformation, where the Pope and the monarch will pray together in an ecumenical service in the Sistine Chapel, and the first time the monarch will have attended a service in St Paul’s Outside the Walls, a church with an historic connection to the English crown,” a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said.

Anglo-Saxon kings sent funds for the basilica in the eighth and ninth centuries, and from the late Middle Ages the kings of England served as protectors of the abbey, which retains the insignia of the Order of the Garter in its abbot’s coat of arms.

The ceremony inducting the King into the confraternity will feature a chair designed for the occasion – inscribed with his coat of arms and the motto Ut unum sint (John 17:21) – which will remain in the basilica for the King and his successors to use on future visit.

A spokesperson for the Church of England said the title of confrater “confers no duties or obligations on the King and makes no changes whatsoever to the formal constitutional and ecclesiastical position of his majesty as supreme governor of Church of England [but] is a tribute to his majesty and to his own work over many decades to find common ground between faiths and to bring people together”.

“It is a sign of honour and spiritual communion,” said Archbishop Flavio Pace, the secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity. He told reporters on Friday that the visit “marks a historic moment in the journey of reconciliation between our Churches”.

The liturgy in the Sistine Chapel, reportedly included in the visit at the King’s request, will mark the tenth anniversary of the encyclical Laudato si’. Music from the Sistine Chapel Choir, with choristers from the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace and St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, will include a hymn by St Ambrose of Milan sung in a translation by St John Henry Newman, whom Pope Leo will declare a Doctor of the Church on 1 November.

After the prayer service, the Pope and the King will hold a private meeting with leaders in Church, business and political efforts to respond to the climate crisis, including members of the Laudato Si’ Movement.

“This meeting underscores the strong relationship between the Catholic and Anglican Churches on environmental issues,” said Sr Alessandra Smerilli, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. “Pope Francis often reminds us that everything is connected, and that environmental and social crises must be addressed together. Pope Leo has continued this approach with further action.”

The King and Queen were due to make a state visit to the Vatican in April, but this was postponed due to Pope Francis’ illness. They instead had a private meeting with the late Pope during a state visit to Italy.

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