6 JANUARY 1950, Page 19

SIR,—Mr. Christopher Hollis, in his article The Holy Year, stated

that since its institution by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300, with a few exceptions due to political disturbances, Jubilee or Holy Years have been celebrated in Rome at least every twenty-five years. This is not quite correct. The intention of Pope Boniface VIII was that the Jubilee or Holy Year should be observed every hundred years, but in 1343 Pope Clement VI stated that the Jubilee should recur every fifty years. Later Pope Urban VI reduced the interval of time to thirty- three years, and finally Pope Paul II in 1470 fixed it at twenty-five