Holy See

This article deals with Holy See as it relates to NationStates. For more general information, see the Wikipedia article on this subject.

The Holy See refers to the episcopal see of Rome, where the Pope offically resides; it can also mean the Pope or the Roman Curia. The term "Holy See" generally refers to the Pope, the Pope's official bureaucracy in the Vatican, Vatican City itself, or all of the above.

One of the more perplexing issues among Roman Catholic NS players is just who is the Pope of the NationStates world. Several players have played the Vatican. Prominent among them is Holy Vatican See (HVS), who RPs an alternate universe in which John Paul II died in 1998, replaced by a Hungarian named Sixtus VI, and then replaced by the current Pope Leo.

While many NS nations accept HVS as the Vatican of the NS world, HVS's players himselves has stated several times that no one is required to accept them as such. Nations such as Syskeyia and Cherry Ridge RP with the RL pontiff, John Paul II, as the pope, and Pantocratoria has accepted HVS' "papacy," but is willing to RP with countries that accept JPII.