The Italian Stefano Martoglio (59) will act as interim head until the election of a new Superior General at the General Chapter in Turin in February 2025. He was elected Vicar of the Rector General and his deputy in 2020.
The Salesians are the second largest Catholic religious order in the world after the Jesuits and are particularly active in youth work.
Artime celebrated his last service as Salesian Superior General on Friday in the Don Bosco Basilica in Castelnuovo Don Bosco to the east of Turin.
The celebration on the birthday of the order's founder Giovanni Bosco (1815-1888) also marked the end of the Salesian Youth Movement's week-long youth synod.
In front of around 300 young people from 83 countries, Artime officially handed over the leadership of the order to Martoglio at the end of the service after ten years in office.
Dicastery taking over of the order?
Pope Francis appointed Artime to the College of Cardinals in 2023.
The native Spaniard then announced his resignation from the leadership of the order and stated that the Pope wanted to entrust him with another task.
In recent months, there has been repeated speculation that Artime could take over the leadership of the Vatican's Dicastery for Religious, officially known as the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, from the current Cardinal Prefect Joao Braz de Aviz (77).
There are 14,000 Salesians in 134 countries worldwide.
Most of them are active in India, Italy, Spain, Poland and Brazil.
The order's German province has around 200 members who work at around 30 locations with around 2,000 employees and volunteers in children's and youth centres.