Vatican City, Dec. 31: Former pope Benedict XVI, the first pontiff in six centuries to resign, has died at the age of 95.

Benedict, the Pope Emeritus, died on Saturday at the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican, a spokesman for the Holy See confirmed.

He had headed the Roman Catholic church from April 2005 to February 2013.

"With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican. Further information will be provided as soon as possible," the spokesman said in a written statement.

The Vatican has said his body will lie in state in St Peter's Basilica from Monday. His funeral will be held in St Peter's Square on January 5, presided over by Pope Francis.

The Vatican has painstakingly elaborate rituals for what happens after a reigning pope dies but no publicly known ones for a former pope.

Earlier this week, Pope Francis disclosed during his weekly general audience that his predecessor was "very sick", and asked for people to pray for him.

Benedict was born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, in the southern German village of Marktl, close to Austria.

He was the first German pope in 1,000 years and the first pontiff in 600 years to resign. For nearly 25 years, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict was also the powerful head of the Vatican's doctrinal office, then known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

Conservatives in the Church have looked to the former pope as their standard bearer and some ultra-traditionalists even refused to acknowledge Francis as a legitimate pontiff.-Agencies