King Charles and Pope Leo pray together at the Vatican for the first time in history, 500 years after the Anglican-Catholic split

Vatican City — King Charles III met with Pope Leo XIV during a state visit to the Vatican on Thursday, and the British monarch made history as the first Church of England leader to pray publicly with a pontiff.

The 76-year-old king, who in his role as monarch also holds the title of supreme governor of the mother church of Anglicanism, flew to Rome on Wednesday afternoon with his wife, Queen Camilla, for what Buckingham Palace called a “historic” trip.

The royals were greeted at the Apostolic Palace on Thursday morning by a ceremonial guard of honor from the Swiss Guard, the pope’s colorful private bodyguards, before a private meeting with Leo, a Chicago native, in the papal library.

It was Charles’s first meeting with Pope Leo, who took over as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May following the death of Pope Francis.

The king and queen joined an ecumenical service at midday (10:00 GMT) in the Sistine Chapel led by Leo and the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, currently the senior cleric of the Church of England.

Broadcast live on Vatican media, it was the first time a reigning English or British monarch prayed publicly with a pope since English King Henry VIII broke with Rome 500 years ago.

Sparked by then-Pope Clement VII’s refusal to annul Henry’s marriage so he could marry another woman, the schism made the monarch head of the separate Church of England.

The break with Rome created a schism that persists to this day, although there has been a significant rapprochement in recent decades.

In 1961, the late Queen Elizabeth II, Charles’s mother, became the first British monarch to visit the Holy See since the partition.

Thursday’s service, held under Michelangelo’s spectacular ceiling frescoes, focused on the conservation and protection of the environment, a cause long championed by Charles. It brought together Catholic and Anglican traditions, and the choir of the Sistine Chapel was joined by that of St. George’s Chapel, in Windsor Castle, one of the king’s residences.

The visit comes at a delicate time for Charles following new revelations about his brother. Prince Andrewwhich is immersed in a Scandal surrounding deceased American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Andrew announced on Friday that renounce his title of Duke of Yorksupposedly under pressure from Charles and Prince William, the king’s son and heir and Andrew’s nephew. Andrew had already retired from official royal duties in 2019.

Charles visited the Vatican several times and met privately with Pope Francis on April 9, just days before the pontiff’s death. The king sent Prince William to the funeral and his brother, Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, to Leo’s inauguration mass.