"Vatican" a Vatican City Travel Page by smschley

After the Edict of Constantine (313 A.D.), the Church emerged from an underground existence, from an illegal religion to a religion now officially recognized by the Roman state. As such, the church was now able to own property which Emperor Constantine provided along with it’s own purchases. All the lands received at the hands of Constantine were confiscated after 1870 by the recently-created (1861) Republic of Italy. Italian unification troops seized the papal states and the Church lost its 18,000 square kilometers of land. This territory was called by various names: the patrimony of Peter, the pontifical states, Constantine’s donation or the states of the Church. The pope was now a sovereign prisoner of the Vatican .The Church and the Kingdom of Italy entered into a bilateral treaty on February 11, 1929. Vatican City State was created. The annexation of Rome to the Kingdom of Italy in 1870 had produced the Roman Question. The pope as supreme head of the Catholic Church could not become an ordinary citizen of the Kingdom, and therefore its subject. In the treaty's preamble, the Kingdom of Italy agreed that the Holy See had full rights, exclusive and absolute power and sovereign jurisdiction over the newly-created Vatican City State. It guaranteed the independence of the Holy See in the international order was an attribute of its very nature. The purpose of the creation of the Vatican City State would be service to the Holy See in its spiritual mission to the world. The Vatican City State has no diplomatic corps and does not enter into diplomatic relations with states.