Pope Francis will officially open an Instagram account on March 19 under the handle Franciscus, Italian newswire ANSA reported citing a Vatican Radio interview with Holy See spokesman Dario Viganò.

Earlier Pope held a private audience with Instagram founder Kevin Systrom. Systrom has presented to the pontiff the photo book in which the most impressive pictures of Instagram are collected. In January Pope met with the Apple CEO Tim Cook. During the meeting he described the Internet as a "gift from God" and a platform to build a healthy society, Gazeta reported.

The Vatican already has an official page on Instagram with 80 thousand subscriptions. Pope started his personal Twitter account in 2012. Now the number of pontiff’s followers has grown to 8.87 million.