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Pope Benedict XVI buried at Vatican after thousands gather for funeral

05 January 2023 16:47 (UTC +04:00)

The body of Benedict XVI, the first pope to resign in six centuries, has been buried in a tomb in the Vatican following a funeral service, APA reports citing yahoonews.

Tens of thousands of mourners gathered in St Peter’s Square on Thursday morning, as Pope Francis honoured his predecessor, presiding over a rare requiem Mass for a dead pontiff by a living one.

Following the service, Benedict’s cypress coffin was placed inside a zinc one, then an outer oak casket, before being entombed in the crypt in the grottos underneath St Peter’s Basilica.

Bells tolled and the faithful applauded as pallbearers carried Benedict’s cypress coffin out of the fog-shrouded basilica and rested it before an altar, before the service began.

Benedict’s longtime secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, bent down and kissed a book of the Gospels left open on the coffin.

Francis, wearing the crimson vestments typical of papal funerals, then took his place and opened the Mass with a prayer