Molotov

Welcome to the official foreign affairs ministry of the Helvetic Republic, fully authorized by the Directory of the Republic to represent the state in all foreign affairs. Any business to be had with our young republic shall henceforth be conducted here.

The following convention between the Holy See and the Helvetic Republic is hereby approved and ratified.

Convention between His Holiness Pius VII and the Government of the Helvetic Republic

• The Holy See of Rome will recognise the legitimacy of the Helvetic Republic, as the successor state of the Swiss Confederacy, as well as of those independent associate states, condominiums and protectorates which it has annexed (the latter includes the Imperial Abbey of St. Gall, the Imperial Abbey of Pfäfers, the Imperial Abbey of Engelberg, etc.).

• Catholicism will be recognised as the religion of a plurality of all Swiss citizens, who shall be granted full freedom to exercise its worship in public in accordance with police regulations the Government deems necessary for the public peace. The authority to determine if a public religious observance would violate the public peace resides with each mayor, who has the power to prohibit a public ceremony if considered a threat to peace.

• All Roman Catholic institutions will again be allowed to operate freely in the Helvetic Republic. This includes all dioceses, parishes, abbeys, monasteries and others. To allow for this, all religious and residential buildings belonging to these institutions and seized by the state shall be returned. However, all confiscations of agricultural land and other economic estates by the Helvetic Republic up until the present, for example from the abbeys, shall however be respected as lawful.

• All currently exiled Roman Catholic clergymen shall be allowed free entry back into the Helvetic Republic, although all Prince-Bishops and Prince-Abbots shall be seen as having their temporal powers secularised, now being simply Bishops and Abbots. This includes Franz Xaver von Neveu as Bishop of Basel, Karl Rudolf Graf von Buol-Schauenstein as Bishop of Chur, Joseph-Marie Paget as Bishop of Geneva, Jean-Baptiste d'Odet as Bishop of Lausanne, Joseph-Antoine Blatter as Bishop of Sion, Pankraz Vorster as Abbot of Saint Gall, and so on. Although these clergymen are all immediately subordinate to His Holiness the Pope, they shall also swear a secondary oath of loyalty to the Helvetic Republic.

• Any and all religious sites and buildings, active as well as historical, including cemeteries and libraries, that may been damaged during recent conflicts and revolutionary activities are to be restored and rebuilt, and all plundered religious relics and furnishings shall be returned. This shall be financed by the Helvetic Republic, which shall face no blame for any such damages.

• His Holiness the Pope shall call upon all good Christian men among the Swiss people to embrace one another in peace, as is the will of the Lord, and avoid unlawful insurrection against all authorities that respect the integrity of the Church.

God bless the Helvetic Republic, who have chosen to welcome the Lord back among the Swiss people, and allowed his servants to return with him.