Review of Doctrinal Views on the International Legal Personality of the Holy See in the 19th and the early 20th Centuries

INTRODUCTION. The study of the prerequisites of the current international legal position of the Holy See and the Vatican City State requires a reflection on the status of the Papacy from 1870 to 1929. During this period, the Holy See maintained its independent international position despite the annexation of the Papal States to Italy. An analysis of the doctrine of that time will make it possible to demonstrate what theoretical constructions were proposed by international lawyers to explain the unique place of the Holy See in interstate communion. MATERIALS AND METHODS. The study used a wide range of works by representatives of Russian, English, American, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Swiss, and Belgian doctrines of international law of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. It used general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, systematic method) and special scientific methods, including historical-legal methods and formal-legal methods. RESEARCH RESULTS. The article analyses foreign and Russian (including the early Soviet) doctrine concerning the status of the Holy See in the period from 1870 to 1929 and assesses the conceptual divergence of scholars on this topic. DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS. Based on the analysis of doctrinal sources, it is concluded that the legal position of the Pope began to receive the attention of international jurists after 1870 when the Catholic Church area was annexed to Italy. The fall of the Papal States initiated an intense doctrinal debate as to whether the international personality of the Papacy survived the events. The overwhelming majority of jurists were convinced that the Papacy after 1870 had lost its state status, having been wholly deprived of the prerogatives of governing a certain territory and population. Some scholars, identifying international legal personality only with statehood, concluded that after 1870, the Holy See retained its international legal status de facto (as a manifestation of quasi-subjectivity). Other scholars saw in the Holy See a unique de jure legal personality. However, several scholars denied the Holy See's de facto and de jure international legal personality.