King Charles III wore two crowns in historic Vatican visit

National Post, 31 October 2025

Charles is the head of state — sovereign “by the grace of God” — in the constitutional monarchies of the United Kingdom and Canada

Pope Leo XIV had two royal visits in the last week, King Charles III and Queen Camilla first and then, a few days later, Belgium’s King Philippe and Queen Mathilde. Careful watchers of protocol — and if protocol is not kept at the Vatican and by royal houses, who will keep it? — noted that Camilla wore all black in the presence of the Holy Father, a feminine tradition now often ignored. Mathilde, in contrast, wore all white, a privilege granted to Catholic queens, of which there are only about a half dozen remaining in the world.

But much more than protocol was at work on the visit of Charles III, and Canadians interested in the unusual status of our head of state no doubt paid attention. Pope Leo and King Charles are leaders who wear multiple hats — or crowns. Last week’s visit was historic, as they wore both at the same time, for the first time.

Charles is the head of state — sovereign “by the grace of God” — in the constitutional monarchies of the United Kingdom and other realms, including Canada and Australia. His powers are vast in theory and entirely constrained in practice. He is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, meaning that he is head of that church, even though its governance and spiritual leadership are exercised by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the governing synod of the Church of England.

Pope Leo is an actual absolute monarch, holding all executive, legislative and judicial power in the Vatican City State, an independent and sovereign, albeit tiny, country. He is also treated as a head of state in that he is, in effect, the Holy See, which is the legal expression of the pope’s role as universal pastor of the Catholic Church. The Holy See — not the Vatican City State — has diplomatic relations with other countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada. Diplomatic relations are not with a tiny micro-state, but with the Catholic Church, in the person of the Holy Father, whose office is the Holy See. The Holy See has had diplomatic relations with civil powers long before the rise of the modern nation state.

When the two meet it has to be determined what hats are being worn. The British are particularly punctilious about that. For example, the British prime minister meets frequently with heads of state and government, but only occasionally is a head of state invited to make a “state visit,” in which case it is the King who is the official host. That’s why when President Donald Trump was invited to make a second state visit last month to the United Kingdom, it was considered a singular and significant invitation.

It’s also why the Canadian prime minister never makes a “state visit,” for he is head of government and the King is our head of state. A Canadian “state visit” to London would be the King of Canada meeting the King of the United Kingdom, namely Charles meeting himself.

Last week Charles made a state visit, wearing his crown as it were and, in joining Pope Leo for liturgical prayer in the Sistine Chapel, also came as a Christian leader. The Anglican Archbishop Stephen Cottrell of York appeared alongside the Holy Father, the second-highest ranking bishop in the Church of England. It is a peculiarity of the Anglican settlement that the head of the Church of England is not a pastor, but the sovereign.

The joint prayer was altogether fitting for King Charles, who has a deeper spiritual sensibility than most of his predecessors. His father, Prince Philip, was Greek, and converted from Orthodoxy to Anglicanism when he married then-Princess Elizabeth in 1947. Philip’s mother, who lived at the end of her life in Buckingham Palace, adopted the lifestyle and habit of a nun, founding a community of Orthodox sisters. All this has been of particular interest to Charles, who has Greek Orthodox spiritual advisors and has gone on pilgrimage multiple times to Mount Athos, the holy place of Orthodox monks in Greece.

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