Mass of tenth anniversary of accreditation

On 9 May 2016 the Delegation of the European Union in Rome to the Holy See, to the Order of Malta, to the UN Agencies in Rome and to the Republic of San Marino, organized a mass to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the accreditation of the Delegation to the Holy See, that occurred on the same occasion of Europe Day in 2006.

The venue for the Catholic rite, the first one ever in the history of the relations between the two entities, was held at the 9th-century Church of San Giorgio in Velabro, situated amid the Palatine and Capitoline Hills. The mass was celebrated in ten among the twenty-three official languages of the European Union and it was held by Msgr Richard Paul Gallagher, Holy See's Secretary for Relations with States, and concelebrated by Mons. Massimiliano Mattia Boiardi, member of the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, and by the Ecclesiastical Counsellors of the EU Embassies to the Holy See. The choir of the Church of Santra Maria di Monserrato accompanied the mass with music  by William Byrd, Heinrich Schutz, Ignazio Donati and Maurice Duruflé.