In a Friday statement, Vatican Radio revealed that when 85-yearold Pope Benedict XVI formally steps down as leader of the Roman Catholic Church next week, his official Twitter account will also be closed.

According to the statement, the Pope - the Vatican's official spokesperson on Twitter - will quit the popular microblogging site after he leaves office on February 28. It is expected that the last and final tweet by the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics will probably be posted on February 27; the day he is scheduled to bid farewell to ordinary Catholics at a public audience in St Peter's Square.

The February 28 closing of the Pope's official Twitter account will come after around two-and-a-half months of the account's high-profile launch on December 12, 2012; under the handle @pontifex.

The tweets which the Pope has been posting ever since on his official Twitter account have attracted over two million followers in as many as nine languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Portuguese, Polish, and Arabic.

About the Pope's tweets having attracted followers in large numbers in a short span of over two months, Vatican Radio said: "It seemed unimaginable one could continue to use a communication tool that is so popular and powerful during the Sede Vacante (Vacant Seat) period."