The Kronsegler x Vatican watch collab is a perfect way to celebrate a new pope

A microbrand watch with an unusual Liturgy of the Hours prayer complication.

(Photos by Hannah Yoest)

Watch nerds can find a way to make anything about watches. (Perhaps the prime example of this phenomenon: Donald Trump’s near assassination last year prompted a discussion of the watches worn by the Secret Service.) It’s obsessive, I know. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t use the election of Pope Leo XIV as an excuse to talk about the Kronsegler Sacristan, the only watch I’m aware of that the Vatican — well, technically the Vatican Observatory, but it still counts — has officially collaborated on.

There are a few versions of the Sacristan, varying in color, case material, and design. All of the models, however, include a complication to assist in praying the Liturgy of the Hours. The model I own has a 24-hour subdial to track the suggested time for each prayer — matins at midnight, lauds at 6 AM, so on and so forth. Other versions have the time for each prayer noted in a power-reserve style 24-hour indicator or on the edges of the dial, with a GMT-style additional hand tracking them.

The Sacristan dials all feature the symbol of the Vatican Observatory Foundation’s coat of arms and a (probably machine-stamped) guilloché pattern. The Sacristan was released in December 2013 and was dedicated to the life’s work of Pope Benedict XVI, who had left the papacy earlier that year.

With prices ranging from about $200 USD to about $500, it’s not *terribly* priced. But with a stamped dial, a cheap automatic movement that doesn’t have a hacking seconds hand, and stainless steel case, it’s really the extremely unusual prayer complication and Vatican Observatory connection buyers are paying for, not the manufacturing details. (For the gold version, which sells for about $6,700, I guess you’re paying mostly for the material.)

It’s not a luxury watch by any means, but I love my Sacristan. It’s an attractive watch with cool heritage. Past popes have worn Swatch, Rolex, Junghans — but the Kronsegler Sacristan is the only watch made in collaboration with the Vatican. (Well, only publicly available collaboration watch. What I wouldn’t give for one of the custom “Papal Purple” Patek Philippes gifted to cardinals in the 1970s.)

But more than that, it’s a daily reminder of the sentiment shared by Pope Leo XIV in his first public address: “We are all in the hands of God.”