Pope Leo the newly elected head of the Catholic Church has joined Instagram this week and amassed over 10 million followers in less than 48 hours. With only two posts the milestone makes him one of the fastest-growing personalities on the platform, surpassing even top-tier celebrities and influencers.

Pope Leo’s Instagram debut featured a powerful image from the moment he was announced as the successor to Pope Francis, captioned with his first public words: “Peace be with you.” The post was instantly met with millions of likes and comments in multiple languages, many welcoming the new Pope and requesting prayers.

 The new pope’s account is called @Pontifex – Pope Leo XIV, and is the only official account of the Holy Father on Instagram.

The Vatican announced that Pope Leo XIV has decided to “maintain an active presence on social media through official papal accounts” on X @Pontifex and Instagram, creating a new one.

In a statement May 13, the Dicastery for Communication said “ Pope Leo XIV inherits the X @Pontifex accounts used by Pope Francis and previously by Benedict XVI.” The dicastery noted, adding that the content published by Pope Francis on X “will soon be archived in the appropriate section of the Holy See’s institutional website,” Vatican.va.

It also added that “the content published on the @Franciscus account will continue to be accessible as an ‘Ad Memoriam’ commemorative archive.”

The Vatican noted that “the presence of the popes on social media began on Dec. 12, 2012, when Pope Benedict XVI launched the @Pontifex account on what was then Twitter.”

The account, which is published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Polish, Arabic, and Latin, “has a total of 52 million followers.”

The dicastery highlighted Pope Francis’ activity on social media, with “a total of approximately 50,000 posts published on the nine @Pontifex accounts and on @Franciscus.”

In 2020 alone, the late Pope’s social media content was viewed over 27 billion times.