Is there any connection between the Holy Roman empire and the Vatican; are they 2 different things?
They are very different things, but they are connected. The Vatican is the complex in Rome where the Pope lives and conducts business and is therefore the institutional center of the Roman Catholic Church. The Holy Roman Empire was a medieval realm in central Europe, mainly in what is now Germany and Italy, ruled over by an emperor. It lasted from the 10th century to the early 19th century when Napoleon abolished it. The connection is that the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope had a symbiotic relationship throughout the Middle Ages: the pope crowned the emperor and thus gave him religious legitimacy (hence the “holy” part) and in return the emperor protected the pope and his privileges as the head of Christendom. But that was a long time ago – nowadays the Holy Roman Empire is a distant memory.
