Former Pope Benedict, who in 2013 became the first pontiff in 600 years to resign, died on Saturday aged 95 in a secluded monastery in the Vatican where he had lived since stepping down.
Bells tolled across the Vatican City as news of his death, which followed a rapid decline in his health over Christmas, spread to the faithful on an unusually warm winter’s day.
The Vatican said his body would lie in state from Monday in St.Peter’s Basilica and his funeral will be held on the morning of Jan. 5. Pope Francis will preside over the ceremony, which will take place in the huge square in front of the basilica.
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“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.
The Vatican has painstakingly elaborate rituals for what happens after a reigning pope dies but no publicly known ones for a former pope - one of the many complications thrown up by Benedict’s shock resignation in 2013.
Earlier this week, Pope Francis disclosed that his predecessor was “very sick”. Bruni said Benedict had received his last rites, called “the anointing of the sick”, on Wednesday.
Leaders were swift in sending their condolences for Benedict, who was the first German pope in 1,000 years.
“We mourn the death of our Bavarian Pope,” said Markus Soeder, premier of Benedict’s home state. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Twitter that the world had lost “a formative figure of the Catholic Church”.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hailed Benedict as “a great man who history will not forget”, while Polish President Andrzej Duda called him “one of the greatest theologians of the 20th and 21st centuries”.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Benedict had “worked with all his soul and intelligence for a more fraternal world”.