Vatican City turns 91
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| Vatican City |
The world’s smallest sovereign state was born on February
11, 1929, with the signing of the Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and the
Kingdom of Italy. On Tuesday, Vatican City State turned 91. We briefly trace
its history before it came into existence.
Vatican News
For many, Vatican City and the Holy See are synonymous but
they are not. While Vatican City State refers to the sovereign
geographical state which came into being only in 1929, the existence of the
Holy See is a juridical entity, whose existence goes back to early Christian
era and is the central authority overseeing the worldwide Catholic Church.
Vatican City is an enclave or an independent sovereign state
in the Italian capital, Rome. With an area of just 0.44 square kilometres
enclosed within a perimeter of 3.2 km, it is equivalent to some 61 standard football
grounds.
Christianity under Roman Empire
Vatican City lies just beyond the right bank of the river
Tiber in Rome, on a slight rise, part of the ancient Vatican Hill, on which
several villas were built in pre-Christian times. The history of Vatican
City is liked with the history of Christianity and the Italian Kingdom and
Republic. For most of its first 300 years, Christianity in the Roman
Empire was considered an underground and even criminal movement and hence was
persecuted.
It appears that many Christians living in Rome during the
reign of Emperor Nero were martyred in an arena called "circus", that
was built in the Vatican area by Emperor Caligula. Peter the Apostle, the
first Bishop of Rome, hence the first Pope, was martyred in Rome and buried to
the north of the circus. Constantine, who ruled from 306 to 337 AD,
became the first Roman Emperor to embrace Christianity and legalized
Christianity and other religions 313 AD. Constantine built a magnificent
basilica over the burial site of St. Peter, and from then on the area started to
become more populated. It was replaced by the present St. Peter’s
Basilica between the 16th and 17th centuries.
Christian Rome
In 380, Emperor Theodosius adopted Christianity as the
official religion of the Roman empire. Thereafter, Christianity spread far a
wide in the empire through the missionaries, and during the early Middle Ages,
most of Europe was Christianized. From the Middle Ages onwards, as the
centralized Roman power waned in southern and central Europe, the dominance of
the Catholic Church became the only consistent force in Western Europe, with
the Pope assuming more and more temporal power. The Papal States,
officially the State of the Church, were territories in the Italian Peninsula
under the sovereign direct rule of the Pope of Rome, from the 8th century until
1870.
Unification of Italy
The “Risorgimento”, the Italian for Resurgence or revival,
was the 19th century political, intellectual and social
movement for the unification of Italy that consolidated different states of the
Italian peninsula from foreign rule, including the Papal States, into the
single state of the Kingdom of Italy.
This was partially accomplished on March 17, 1861, with
Victor Emmanuel II as Italy’s first king. Only the region of Lazio,
including Rome, remained under the temporal control of the then Pope, Pius IX,
who refused to bow down to the new kingdom.
In 1870, when the Pope's holdings were further circumscribed
after Rome itself was invaded and annexed by the royalist army, the pope
demanded compensation. In protest, Pope Pius IX proclaimed himself a
“prisoner of the Vatican,” and for almost 60 years popes refused to leave the
Vatican and submit to the authority of the Italian kingdom.
Vatican City State
This standoff between a series of so-called "prisoner"
popes and the Kingdom of Italy was resolved on February 11, 1929, by the
Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy, which established
the independence and sovereignty of Vatican City State and granted Roman
Catholicism special status in Italy. Hence February 11 is observed as the
foundation day of Vatican City, which turned 88 on Feb. 11, last Saturday.
There are five entrances to Vatican City which are guarded
by the Pontifical Swiss Guards and by the Gendarmerie Corps of Vatican City
State. Because Vatican City is so small, several departments, offices and
property belonging to the Holy See, most notably the summer papal residence of
Castel Gandolfo and the major basilicas, are situated in buildings around
Rome. According to the Lateran Treaty, these buildings enjoy the
so-called “extraterritorial” rights of Vatican City, recognized by
international law, like embassies and foreign diplomatic missions
abroad.
Holy See, Pope and Vatican
The Vatican is technically a rare case of a non-hereditary
elective monarchy; the monarch, the Pope, being elected by cardinals under the
age of 80 during an election called the conclave held in the Vatican’s Sistine
Chapel.
The Pope is the head of both Vatican City State and the Holy
See. The Catholic Church carries out its mission of announcing the truth of the
Gospel for the salvation of all humanity and in the service of peace and
justice in favour of all peoples, both through the various specific and local
Churches and bishops spread throughout the world, as well as through its
central administration in the Vatican, made up of the Pope and the various
offices and departments called the Roman Curia, that assist him.
As such, the Holy See is an institution which, according to
the international laws and customs, is a juridical entity which permits it to
sign treaties and to send and receive diplomatic representatives, as the
juridical equivalent of a state. While Vatican City State refers to
the sovereign geographical state which came into being only in 1929, the
existence of the Holy See goes back to early Christianity and is the central
authority overseeing the worldwide Catholic Church, with some 1.3 billion
faithful.
Between 1870, when the new Italian Kingdom further reduced
the Pope’s territories in Rome, and before Feb. 11, 1929, when Vatican City
State did not exist as yet, the Holy See maintained diplomatic relations with
many States. Ambassadors are officially accredited not to the Vatican
City State but to "the Holy See", and the Pope’s ambassadors called
Apostolic Nuncios to states and international organizations are recognized as
representing the Holy See, not the Vatican City State.
City state
About half of the Vatican’s citizens do not live inside
Vatican City. Because of their occupations, such as diplomatic personnel,
they live in different countries around the world.
Vatican City State also has its own flag and anthem. As a
sovereign state, Vatican City mints its own coins and issues its own postage
stamps. By virtue of a monetary convention with Italy, Vatican coins are
legal tender throughout Italy and the rest of the European Union. This
convention gave Vatican City State the right to use the Euro as its official
currency, starting on January 1, 1999. Earlier, its currency was the
Italian Lira.
Vatican City has its own museum, one of the richest in the
world, a fabulous library, a small railroad and a railway station, a helipad, a
radio, a printing press and publishing house, a newspaper, a television centre,
a postal system, a pharmacy, a clinic and an observatory.
The Gendarmerie Corps of Vatican City State, or simply
Vatican Gendarmerie, which is the Vatican’s police force, is responsible for
public order, law enforcement, crowd and traffic control, and criminal
investigations inside Vatican City. Vatican City has no armed force of
its own apart from the Swiss Guards, the world’s oldest and smallest
army. The military defence of Vatican City is provided by Italy and its
armed forces, given the fact that Vatican City is an enclave within the Italian
Republic.
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