The Basilica of St John Lateran

On Tuesday morning, we got up early again and headed out for a full day of exploring the city. We started at the Basilica of St John Lateran. I spent a little extra time wandering around intside while Pelagia explored the big open air market that takes place just around the corner. (She even found something!) ( ;

As I mentioned before, St John Lateran is the official seat of the Pope, although the Papacy is now headquartered at St Peter’s.

The basilica is called ‘Lateran’ because it was originally a palace belonging to a noble Roman family of that name. Around 60 AD, it fell into the hands of the Roman Emperors, until Emperor Constantine gave it to the Church. A synod, convened to discuss the Donatist heresy, was held here in 313.

In its post-schism history, this basilica held the five Lateran Councils, which the Roman Catholic Church considers ecumenical.

The top photo is taken from the front of the basilica.

The second photo is taken from the front of the church. The altar is to the immediate left (not shown) and the podium is directly in front.

The third photo is of the apse, which features beautiful Byzantine-style iconography.

The bottom photo is of a side chapel located in the northeast corner, facing north (the main part of the church always looks toward the east).

Monday Evening in Rome

After the Vatican, we took a bus back over the Tiber River and just got off somewhere. We had landed next to the Church of St John the Baptist of the Florentines, so we stopped in. It was yet another giant, imposing church with plenty of baroque painting on the inside. On the painting, I’ll say this – I found it interesting, but I must admit that I am personally not a big fan of the style, especially for religious subjects. While I can appreciate the aesthetic, it’s more from a clinical perspective.

Anyway, after that we continued walking toward the center of town, and stopped at the Sacred Area of Largo di Torre Argentino, which features the ruins of four ancient temples, built between 4^th-2^nd centuries BC. (See the top photo.)

Interestingly, a volunteer group runs a cat shelter from the ruins. As in Greece, stray cats seem to like hanging out in the ancient ruins, so what better place to run the shelter? The group even gives tours of the ruins in exchange for a small donation to their project. Of course, Pelagia stopped to play with the cats and talk to the shelter workers.

After that, we stopped for dinner. (The food in Rome was great, by the way!) The second photo is of the accordion player who serenaded us all.

After dinner, we walked over to the famous Trevi Fountain and then the Spanish Steps (photos 3 and 4). They were both packed with people. The Fountain in particular made a very nice place to just sit for awhile and enjoy the sights and sounds of the water.

St Peter's Basilica

At the end of our tour, we were left at the entrance to the Sistine Chapel. We were told there was supposed to be complete silence and no cameras or video (even without flash), but when we went in, it was pandemonium. The place was jam packed, everyone talking, flashes popping. I took some video (which has the advantage of not needing flash), which you can see at the end of the Vatican video in the last post.

I was surprised at the paintings on the ceiling – they were smaller and more of them than I had thought.

After the Sistine Chapel, we headed through a special entrance (which did not require another security screening since we had already passed one) into St Peter’s Basilica.

What can I say? It is absolutely enormous, although it’s sort of sectioned off into manageable pieces with enormous pillars and side chapels. We got to go right up to the altar, over which there is an incredibly tall tower. At the top of the tower, which no one can quite see, are supposedly housed the skulls of Sts Peter and Paul.

I tried to take some photos, but the space is so enormous that nothing really came out.

So I have now been in (I believe) the three largest churches in the world -- St Peter’s, Hagia Sophia, and St Sava’s (in Belgrade), and I would honestly have to say that I was most impressed by St Sava’s. Even though the interior is not finished, the way they used the interior space is the most awe-inspiring. There are no pillars dividing the space, and the roof seems the highest of the three.

The first photo is of St Peter’s Square, taken from the entrance to the Basilica.

The second photo is also taken from the entrance, but pointing off to the right, where many of the administrative buildings of the independent country of the Vatican are housed – such as the Vatican Post Office. (The country of the Vatican, you’ll be interested to know, has a population of 400 and the official language is Latin.)

The bottom photo is of the front of St Peter’s, looking back from the end of St Peter’s Square.

For more information on St Peter’s, click here. It’s interesting to note that St Peter’s is actually the patriarchal seat of Constantinople, not Rome. The pope, as the patriarch of Rome, technically has his seat at St John Lateran. (There are five patriarchal basilicas in Rome, acting as seats – originally – for the Pentarchy, or five equal Patriarchs of Christendom.) St Paul’s Outside the Walls was the seat of the Pope (or Patriarch) of Alexandria; St Mary Maggiore for the Patriarch of Antioch; and St Lawrence Outside the Walls (not considered a major basilica) for the Patriarch of Jerusalem (who is ranked fifth in the hierarchy of honor among the patriarchates).

Monday Afternoon: The Vatican Museum

After the catacombs, we headed toward the Vatican. There were people everywhere. The Vatican Museum averages 17,000 visitors a day – and they close at 3:30!! It was crazy!

Fortunately, I had read about this and found a way around it – to book a guided tour in advance. This way, we got to skip to the front of the line to clear security. The sun was beating down, so it was great to avoid the line baking outside. But, almost unbelievably, the museum does not have any air conditioning.

Anyway, our guide led us through some of the highlights of the museum for about 1.5-2 hours, then left us at the Sistine Chapel, through which we then went into St Peter’s Basilica. I put together a 10-minute video of all this that you can view below.

As for the photos, the middle one is the porphyry sarcophagus of St Helen, the mother of St Constantine.

The bottom photo is from the Hall of Maps.

In all, I believe our guide said there are 7 km of exhibits! I did not get to see the manuscript collection, which I was interested in. This is held in the nearby Vatican Library, and – I was told – that I would need to file a written request in advance and have some scholarly purpose for the visit. Maybe I can invent one if we ever go back! ( ;

Check out the video:

Monday Morning in Rome: The Catacombs

On Monday morning, we headed out early for the Appian Way and the famous catacombs. The Appian Way is an old road which led out of the city to the southeast. According to the apocryphal Acts of Peter, it was here that St Peter, as he was fleeing the persecution in Rome, had a vision of Christ, who was heading into the city. St Peter asked Christ: “Domine, quo vadis?” (Lord, where are you going?), to which Christ replied: “I am going to Rome to be crucified again.” From this, St Peter understood that he was to return to Rome to face the persecution. He was crucified upside down. A church is built on the site of this vision.

Further down the Appian Way, there are miles and miles of catacombs. The bus dropped us off, and we started walking down this famous ancient road. (See the top photo.) Along the way, we saw several sites, including the above-ground mausoleum of a wealthy Roman woman, Cecilia Metella, and the ruins of the ancient church, St Nicholas de’ Caetani (see middle photo). Sadly, as we walked around these ruins, we noticed that this secluded area appears to be used for less-than-holy purposes – we found hypodermic needles tucked into a crevice in the wall. This was all the more odd because the area is very well-to-do, with massive, beautiful estates on either side of the road.

Finally, we made it down to the Catacombs of St Sebastian, one of three catacomb complexes in the area open to visitors. It stays a cool 60 degrees down there, so it was a great place to visit! This set of catacombs stretch for several miles and contained 100,000 bodies, with Christians and pagans buried together. During the persecution of the Emperor Vespasian (69-79 AD), the relics of Sts Peter and Paul were hidden here. To commemorate this, St Constantine erected a church on top of the catacombs to the memory of Sts Peter and Paul. It was later rededicated to St Sebastian, who was martyred in 287 (see bottom photo).

Afterwards, we walked on a little while to the Catacombs of St Callixtus, which are the largest and most famous catacombs with 20 km of tunnels. It was originally founded as a specifically Christian burial ground, and ended up housing 500,000 Christians, 100,000 of which were babies. (For more information on the Christians as a funerary association in the eyes of the Romans, check out this fascinating book by Robert Wilken.)

In one of the rooms we walked through, which once housed the tombs of 7 popes, one early pope, Pope St Sixtus II (257-258) was martyred along with four deacons during a service. Contrary to popular belief, we were told, the Romans did know that the Christians were meeting for services in the catacombs. Enforcement, however, was sporadic. On this occasion, Roman soldiers entered the catacombs, found Pope Sixtus II addressing the faithful, and martyred him and his four deacons. The faithful attending the service were allowed to live.

The catacombs were definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside the catacombs.

First Evening in Rome

We left Thessaloniki on Sunday around 2 pm and it was only a short 1.5-2 hour flight to Rome. The airport is about 30 miles outside the city, so you have to take train from the airport. We got to our little room around 4:30 PM (Italian time, one hour behind us), checked in with our host, and then headed out for a stroll around town.

As I’m sure I’ll mention again, it has been *extremely* hot in this area of the world for the last week or so, and Rome was no exception. (Although our neighbors told us it was worse here – on Tuesday it supposedly got up to 114 in Athens, and a breezy 109 here in Thessaloniki.)

Since it was already approaching evening when we arrived, the heat wasn’t too bad. We took a leisurely stroll toward the Colosseum, which was about a 20-minute walk from our place. Along the way, we passed a local soccer match in action (see the top photo). Surprisingly, it seemed that most of the players and spectators were from Latin America.

Overall, I was very surprised how diverse the population in Rome was – there seemed to be an enormous Indian/Pakistani population (at least in the area we were staying), as well as many from central Africa and Latin America. Combine that with all the tourists (20 million per year) and I began to wonder if there were any actual Italians left in Rome. It’s funny, but I actually heard more American English than Italian there!

Anyway, we stopped and watched the game for a few minutes and then continued down to the Colosseum, the Palatine, and the Roman Agora (see the bottom two photos).

Along the way, we also stopped in a church, the Basilica of Sts Sylvester and Martin. It had started as a house church in the 2^nd century! Here is some historical information I found on it:

“Its origins reach back to the era of the imperial persecutions when it was a domus Dei, a house church, known as titulus Equitii, probably because the house or land belonged to a priest named Equitius. The original church was built by Saint Sylvester (314-335) and restored in the early sixth century when it was dedicated to St. Martin of Tours (317-397) and Pope St. Sylvester. The crypt shows signs of the ancient alternate name of the church as “San Martino in Thermis.” It was the site of the preparatory meetings for the Council of Nicaea in 325 and the site of a diocesan Council over which both Constantine and Sylvester presided. It was here, in fact, that the Nicene Creed was first proclaimed in Rome. Also, the heretical books of Arius, Sabellius, and Victorius were burnt here.”