Deutsch: Der Kölner Dom nachts.
Français : La Cathédrale de Cologne, en Allemagne.
Photo: 19 August 2013.
Source: Own work.
Attribution: © Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de
Author: Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de
(Wikimedia Commons)
unless stated otherwise.
Monday of The Second Week in Lent.
Station at Saint Clement's.
Indulgence of 10 Years and 10 Quarantines.
Violet Vestments.
English: Basilica of Saint Clement, Rome.
Italiano: Basilica di San Clemente al Laterano.
Photo: May 2007.
Source: Own work.
Author: Berthold Werner
(Wikimedia Commons)
The Station is at the Church of Saint Clement, built above the very house of the third successor of Saint Peter, whose name is found in The Canon of The Mass. This Sanctuary, a Parish of Rome in the 5th-Century A.D., is a most faithful example of an old Roman Basilica, although it was rebuilt in the 11th-Century. There are found, under the Altar, the remains of The Holy Martyr and of Saint Ignatius of Antioch.
Our Lord foretells in the Gospel that the Jews will lift Him up on The Cross, and thrice He asserts that they will die in their sin, because they have not believed in Him and done His works.
The wrath of God, which fell a first time on Jerusalem at the time of the Captivity of Babylon (Epistle), was renewed against Israel at the burning of the Temple. Like guilty Christians, they would only be able to return to The Lord by Penance, while the heathen are called, instead, to believe in Jesus, to become part of His people by Baptism.
“Let us mortify our flesh by Abstinence from food and let us Fast from sin by following Justice” (Collect).
Mass: Rédime me.
Preface: Of Lent.
Basilica of Saint Clement, Rome.
Available on YouTube at
Basilica di San Clemente, Rome, Italy.
Photo: March 2006.
Source: Own work.
Author: Sixtus
Permission: GFDL
(Wikimedia Commons)
The following Text is from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia,
unless otherwise stated.
The Basilica of Saint Clement (Italian: Basilica di San Clemente-al-Laterano) is a Roman Catholic Minor Basilica, Dedicated to Pope Clement I, located in Rome, Italy. Archæologically-speaking, the structure is a three-tiered complex of buildings:
(1) The present Basilica, built just before the year 1100, during the height of The Middle Ages;
(2) Beneath the present Basilica, is a 4th-Century A.D. Basilica that had been converted out of the home of a Roman nobleman, part of which had, in the 1st-Century A.D., briefly served as an early Church, and the basement of which had, in the 2nd-Century A.D., briefly served as a mithraeum;
(3) The home of the Roman nobleman had been built on the foundations of a Republican-era building that had been destroyed in The Great Fire of 64 A.D.
Ceiling of the Basilica of Saint Clement, Rome.
Photo: May 2007.
Source: Own work.
Author: Berthold Werner
(Wikimedia Commons)
This ancient Church was transformed over the Centuries from a private home, that was the site of clandestine Christian worship in the 1st-Century A.D., to a grand public Basilica by the time of the 6th-Century A.D, reflecting the emerging Catholic Church's growing legitimacy and power.
The archaeological traces of the Basilica's history were discovered in the 1860s by Joseph Mullooly, Lector in Sacred Theology, beginning in 1849 at the College of Saint Thomas in Rome, the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.
The lowest levels of the present Basilica are remnants of the Foundation of a Republican-era building that was destroyed in The Great Fire of 64 A.D. An industrial building, possibly the Imperial Mint of Rome, was built on the site during the "Flavian" Period and, shortly thereafter, a "domus", or multi-level house, alongside it, separated form the industrial building by a narrow alleyway.
About a hundred years later (circa 200 A.D.), the central room of the domus was re-modelled for use as part of a mithraeum, that is, as part of a sanctuary of the cult of Mithras. The main cult room (the speleum, "cave", which is about 9.6 m long and 6 m wide, was discovered in 1867, but could not be investigated until 1914, due to lack of drainage. The "exedra", the shallow Apse at the far end of the low vaulted space, was trimmed with pumice to render it more cave-like.
English: Mithraeum, under the Basilica of Saint Clement, in Rome.
Italiano: Mitreo sottostante la basilica di San Clemente a Roma.
Русский: Митреум под базиликой святого Климента.
Date: 17 December 2006.
Author: Allie Caulfield
(Wikimedia Commons)
Central to the main room of the sanctuary, was found an altar, in the shape of a sarcophagus, and with the main cult relief of the tauroctony, Mithras slaying a bull, on its front face. The torch-bearers, Cautes and Cautopates, appear on, respectively, the Left and Right faces of the same monument.
A dedicatory inscription identifies the donor as one Pater Cnaeus Arrius Claudianus, perhaps of the same clan as Titus Arrius Antoninus' mother. Other monuments discovered in the sanctuary include a bust of Sol, kept in the sanctuary in a niche near the entrance, and a figure of "Mithras petra generix, i.e. "Mithras, born of the rock".
Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius bring the body of Saint Clement to Rome.
11th-Century fresco in the Basilica di San Clemente, Rome.
Source/Photographer: Unknown.
(Wikimedia Commons)
All three monuments, mentioned above, are still on display in the Mithraeum. A fourth monument, – a statue of Saint Peter found in the Speleum's Vestibule, and still on display there – is not of the mysteries.
Yet another ancient and extraordinary basilica and stational church. Because it is so close to the Coliseum, it is almost always overlooked by visitors to Rome.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago, certainly when Queen Victoria was still on the throne, I visited this church, and wanted to see the museum and ruins/excavations underneath the church, but didn’t know where to gain entrance. It was quite unclear, at least then. In my certainly comical Italian I asked a very kindly-looking elderly Dominican priest, seated at his desk near the entrance, who was the apparent church monitor, how I could see the “ruini”— he listened very patiently, and at length, suppressing a small smile, finally, in perfect English, tinged by an Irish brogue, he explained the access and helped me out—Because the Irish Province Dominicans have the care of this church. (If I only knew, it could’ve saved me the mental struggle.)
If you go to this church, don’t worry about having to speak Italian.
A riveting, and very entertaining, addition to this Article. Thank You, Dante Peregrinus.
ReplyDeleteI note your comment on not needing Italian when visiting this beautiful Basilica. I also note that Queen Victoria died in 1901, so you must now be approaching your 150th year !!!
Indeed, Zephyrinus, it was a very long time ago that I visited Saint Clement; and “the mists of time” have swept over so much since then.
ReplyDeleteYet as Claudius says in Robert Graves’ “I, Claudius:” “Yet here I am.”
Your reference, Dante Peregrinus, to Claudius saying: “Yet here I am”, puts me in mind of what Sherlock Holmes said, when Moriarty bursts into 221b, Baker Street, to warn Holmes off from “interfering in my affairs”.
Delete“You have incommoded me on several occasions”, said Moriarty. “You must now draw back, Mr. Holmes, or I shall be forced to put an end to your endeavours. You will be finished, Mr. Holmes”.
Holmes replied (laconically): “So many others have said the same thing, over many years, and yet, here I am, still”.