Non-Italic Text taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal for Saturday of the Fourth Week in Lent
Italic text taken from
http://romanchurches.wikia.com/wiki/San_Nicola_in_Carcere
Pictures from Wikipedia (the free encyclopaedia) (unless otherwise accredited)
Station at Saint Nicholas's in Carcere
Indulgence of 10 years and 10 Quarantines
Violet Vestments
The Station is at a Church built on the ruins of three pagan temples and consecrated to Saint Nicholas. It is called "in carcere" because, in former times, it had a dungeon.
Here are venerated the remains of the holy martyrs, Mark, Marcellinus, Faustinus, Simplicius, Beatrice. The remains are contained in an ancient urn, placed under the High Altar. The interior, in the form of a Basilica, is very harmonious.
However, before the 8th-Century, the Station was kept at Saint Laurence "in Lucina"; this is why so many allusions to "light" are made in this Mass. Water is also often mentioned; it reminds the Catechumens of the water of Baptism for which they are longing; besides, it alludes also to the fact that the Stational Procession, coming from the Church of Sant'Angelo "Piscium Venditor" (at Castel Sant'Angelo) had to walk along the Tiber.
Isaias, from whom the Introit and the Epistle of the Mass are taken, sees hastening from all sides the Catechumens and public penitents who are waiting with holy impatience for the Easter Feast, when, at last, their Souls may quench their thirst in the springs of grace through the Sacraments of Baptism and Penance.
They were in darkness and Jesus gives them light (Epistle), for He tells us in the Gospel that He is the light of the world and that he who follows Him walketh not in darkness, but in the light of life. Let us also, by Penance, cast out sin from our hearts, and let us ask Christ to fill them with the light of His grace.
San Nicola in Carcere is a Church dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Myra, the Patron Saint of sailors and of children and the remote cause of the phenomenon of Santa Claus. It is a Minor Basilica and a Titular Church, and is also the Regional Church for those from Puglia and Lucania living in Rome. However, it is no longer a Parish Church. The address is Via del Teatro di Marcello 46 in the rione Ripa, just north of the Bocca del Verità.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Church is that it incorporates the remains of three temples of the Republican era (2nd-Century BC), which used to stand in a row, side by side in the ancient Forum Holitorium, with their entrances facing East. It is difficult to determine from the extant sources which temple was dedicated to which divinity, but the consensus is as follows.
The northernmost was dedicated to Janus, and had two rows of six Ionic columns of peperino at the entrance and eight down each side. Two survive to the North, and seven to the South, embedded with their architrave in the Church's North wall. Well-preseved parts of the podium also survive in the crypt.
The site of the middle temple is occupied by the Church; it was dedicated to Juno Sospita and was in the Ionic style. Three columns survive, embedded in the façade (out of six), and other remains exist in the crypt and also at the end of the left aisle.
The Southern, much smaller, temple was dedicated to Spes (hope personified as a goddess). It was in the Doric style, with six columns at the entrance and eleven down each side. Seven columns of the North side are embedded in the South wall of the church.
There used to be a fourth temple just to the North, the Temple of Pietas built by Manius Acilius Glabrio, who was consul in 191 B.C., but this was demolished for the construction of the Theatre of Marcellus.
How the three temples became a Church is completely obscure. A surmise is that the middle temple was converted into a Church in the 6th-Century, but there is no documentary evidence at all. The name carcere, meaning "prison", is also puzzling. There is a reference in Pliny which reads ...Templo Pietatis exstructo in illius carceris sede ubi nunc Marcelli theatro est ("The Temple of Piety was built on the site of the prison where the Theatre of Marcellus now is"), but if this is the same prison it requires a memory of it to have persisted for at least seven hundred years. Alternatively, one of the temples could have been used as a prison during periods of civic disorder during the early-Dark Ages, such as the sacking of the city by barbarians in the 5th-Century or the Gothic Wars in the 6th-Century. Citizens may have been imprisoned in order to extort ransoms. However, these theories again have no documentary evidence. The puzzle of the name caused people in the Middle Ages to mistake the Church for the site of the Mamertine Prison.
The first certain reference is from 1128 A.D., attested by a plaque in the Church recalling its rebuilding and consecration. The inscription is not easy to read, and the Diocese has the year as 1088 A.D. The dedication to Saint Nicholas was perhaps as a result of the Greek population then living in the area, as the Saint has always been popular in the Byzantine Rite. However, he has long been popular in the West as well, and his shrine is at Bari (which is why this is the Puglian Regional Church).
In the 11th-Century, the Church was known as San Nicola Petrus Leonis, referring to the convert Jewish Pierleoni family, who rebuilt the nearby Theatre of Marcellus as a fortress. (They became famous Roman patricians in the Middle Ages.) It was remodelled in 1599, when the present Mannerist façade was added, and restored in the 19th-Century on the orders of Pope Pius IX.
In the 20th century, the edifice almost succumbed to the nationalist passion for excavating and exposing the surviving architectural remains of the Roman Empire. The surrounding buildings, many of them medieval, were demolished, leaving the church isolated. When Mussolini 's grandiose Via del Mare road scheme was executed, the present wide road was pushed through at a much lower level than the original street and hence the church is now only accessible in front by steps. An engraving by Vasi shows the streetscape before all this destruction (see the "Romeartlover" external link). A further unfortunate result was that the surrounding area was depopulated (few people live around here even now), and this left the ancient parish unviable. It was suppressed in 1931, and the church made dependent on Santa Maria in Campitelli.
The current titular deacon of the church is H.E. Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski. He was appointed on 21 February 2001.
Italic text taken from
http://romanchurches.wikia.com/wiki/San_Nicola_in_Carcere
Pictures from Wikipedia (the free encyclopaedia) (unless otherwise accredited)
Station at Saint Nicholas's in Carcere
Indulgence of 10 years and 10 Quarantines
Violet Vestments
Church of San Nicola in Carcere, Rome
(Photo from http://arsorandi.blogspot.co.uk/)
The Station is at a Church built on the ruins of three pagan temples and consecrated to Saint Nicholas. It is called "in carcere" because, in former times, it had a dungeon.
Here are venerated the remains of the holy martyrs, Mark, Marcellinus, Faustinus, Simplicius, Beatrice. The remains are contained in an ancient urn, placed under the High Altar. The interior, in the form of a Basilica, is very harmonious.
However, before the 8th-Century, the Station was kept at Saint Laurence "in Lucina"; this is why so many allusions to "light" are made in this Mass. Water is also often mentioned; it reminds the Catechumens of the water of Baptism for which they are longing; besides, it alludes also to the fact that the Stational Procession, coming from the Church of Sant'Angelo "Piscium Venditor" (at Castel Sant'Angelo) had to walk along the Tiber.
Isaias, from whom the Introit and the Epistle of the Mass are taken, sees hastening from all sides the Catechumens and public penitents who are waiting with holy impatience for the Easter Feast, when, at last, their Souls may quench their thirst in the springs of grace through the Sacraments of Baptism and Penance.
They were in darkness and Jesus gives them light (Epistle), for He tells us in the Gospel that He is the light of the world and that he who follows Him walketh not in darkness, but in the light of life. Let us also, by Penance, cast out sin from our hearts, and let us ask Christ to fill them with the light of His grace.
Solemn High Mass at San Nichola in Carcere, Rome
(Photo from http://arsorandi.blogspot.co.uk/)
San Nicola in Carcere is a Church dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Myra, the Patron Saint of sailors and of children and the remote cause of the phenomenon of Santa Claus. It is a Minor Basilica and a Titular Church, and is also the Regional Church for those from Puglia and Lucania living in Rome. However, it is no longer a Parish Church. The address is Via del Teatro di Marcello 46 in the rione Ripa, just north of the Bocca del Verità.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Church is that it incorporates the remains of three temples of the Republican era (2nd-Century BC), which used to stand in a row, side by side in the ancient Forum Holitorium, with their entrances facing East. It is difficult to determine from the extant sources which temple was dedicated to which divinity, but the consensus is as follows.
The northernmost was dedicated to Janus, and had two rows of six Ionic columns of peperino at the entrance and eight down each side. Two survive to the North, and seven to the South, embedded with their architrave in the Church's North wall. Well-preseved parts of the podium also survive in the crypt.
Interior of San Nicola in Carcere
(Photo taken by Lalupa)
The site of the middle temple is occupied by the Church; it was dedicated to Juno Sospita and was in the Ionic style. Three columns survive, embedded in the façade (out of six), and other remains exist in the crypt and also at the end of the left aisle.
The Southern, much smaller, temple was dedicated to Spes (hope personified as a goddess). It was in the Doric style, with six columns at the entrance and eleven down each side. Seven columns of the North side are embedded in the South wall of the church.
There used to be a fourth temple just to the North, the Temple of Pietas built by Manius Acilius Glabrio, who was consul in 191 B.C., but this was demolished for the construction of the Theatre of Marcellus.
Exterior view of San Nicola in Carcere
showing ancient columns embedded in the wall
(Photo by Berthold Werner May 2007)
How the three temples became a Church is completely obscure. A surmise is that the middle temple was converted into a Church in the 6th-Century, but there is no documentary evidence at all. The name carcere, meaning "prison", is also puzzling. There is a reference in Pliny which reads ...Templo Pietatis exstructo in illius carceris sede ubi nunc Marcelli theatro est ("The Temple of Piety was built on the site of the prison where the Theatre of Marcellus now is"), but if this is the same prison it requires a memory of it to have persisted for at least seven hundred years. Alternatively, one of the temples could have been used as a prison during periods of civic disorder during the early-Dark Ages, such as the sacking of the city by barbarians in the 5th-Century or the Gothic Wars in the 6th-Century. Citizens may have been imprisoned in order to extort ransoms. However, these theories again have no documentary evidence. The puzzle of the name caused people in the Middle Ages to mistake the Church for the site of the Mamertine Prison.
The first certain reference is from 1128 A.D., attested by a plaque in the Church recalling its rebuilding and consecration. The inscription is not easy to read, and the Diocese has the year as 1088 A.D. The dedication to Saint Nicholas was perhaps as a result of the Greek population then living in the area, as the Saint has always been popular in the Byzantine Rite. However, he has long been popular in the West as well, and his shrine is at Bari (which is why this is the Puglian Regional Church).
Facade of San Nicola in Carcere
(Photo taken by Patrick Denker July 2006)
In the 11th-Century, the Church was known as San Nicola Petrus Leonis, referring to the convert Jewish Pierleoni family, who rebuilt the nearby Theatre of Marcellus as a fortress. (They became famous Roman patricians in the Middle Ages.) It was remodelled in 1599, when the present Mannerist façade was added, and restored in the 19th-Century on the orders of Pope Pius IX.
In the 20th century, the edifice almost succumbed to the nationalist passion for excavating and exposing the surviving architectural remains of the Roman Empire. The surrounding buildings, many of them medieval, were demolished, leaving the church isolated. When Mussolini 's grandiose Via del Mare road scheme was executed, the present wide road was pushed through at a much lower level than the original street and hence the church is now only accessible in front by steps. An engraving by Vasi shows the streetscape before all this destruction (see the "Romeartlover" external link). A further unfortunate result was that the surrounding area was depopulated (few people live around here even now), and this left the ancient parish unviable. It was suppressed in 1931, and the church made dependent on Santa Maria in Campitelli.
The current titular deacon of the church is H.E. Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski. He was appointed on 21 February 2001.
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