Although
most Catholics believe the Basilica of St. Peter’s to be the main
church of the Pope, it is not: St. John Lateran, also called the Church
of Holy Savior or the Church of St. John the Baptist, is the Cathedral
of the Diocese of Rome, or the Pope’s church. “The Lateran” was built on
land that the Emperor Constantine received from the wealthy and
virtuous Lateran family. He, in turn, gave the land to the Church, who
constructed the first basilica there in the early fourth century.
Consecrated
in 324 by Pope Sylvester, the Lateran Basilica was where cardinals were
consecrated to the papacy until the fourteenth century when Pope
Gregory XI returned the papal enclave from Avignon in France to Rome and
arrived to find the Lateran and the nearby papal palace ruined beyond
repair. The Lateran was not restored until many years later, when Pope
Innocent X built the current structure in 1646. One of the most
marvelous and imposing churches in Rome, it has five large statues of
Christ, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist and twelve Doctors of the
Church, and holds beneath the high altar what is left of the wooden
table which St. Peter himself used as an altar to celebrated the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass.
Since the Basilica of the Lateran is
officially the Pope’s cathedral, it is also considered the parish church
of all Catholics. It is called “omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater
et caput,” or "the mother and mistress of all the churches of Rome and
of the world."
Photo by: Grenouille vert
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