THE DEDICATION OF ST JOHN LATERAN - 9 NOVEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 9th of November 

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THE DEDICATION OF ST JOHN LATERAN

St John Lateran is the oldest, and ranks first among the four great "patriarchal" basilicas of Rome. The site was, in ancient times, occupied by the palace of the family of the Laterani. 

The palace came eventually into the hands of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, through his wife Fausta, and it is from her that it derived the name by which it was then sometimes called, "Domus Faustae". Constantine must have given it to the Church in the time of Miltiades, not later than about 311, for we find a council against the Donatists meeting within its walls as early as 313.

ALWAYS THE CENTRE OF CHRISTIAN LIFE

From that time onwards it was always the centre of Christian life within the city; the residence of the popes and the cathedral of Rome. The latter distinction it still holds, though it has long lost the former.

It seems probable, in spite of the tradition that Constantine helped in the work of building with his own hands, that there was not a new basilica erected at the Lateran, but that the work carried out at this period was limited to the adaptation, which perhaps involved the enlargement, of the already existing basilica or great hall of the palace. 

PROBABLY NOT VERY LARGE

This original church was probably not of very large dimensions, but we have no reliable information on the subject. It was dedicated to the Saviour, "Basilica Salvatoris", the dedication to Saint John being of later date, and due to a Benedictine monastery of Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist which adjoined the basilica and where members were charged at one period with the duty of maintaining the services in the church. This later dedication to Saint John has now in popular usage altogether superseded the original one. 

A great many donations from the popes and other benefactors to the basilica are recorded in the "Liber Pontificalis" , and its splendour at an early period was such that it became known as the  Basilica Aurea", or Golden Church. 

"BASILICA AUREA"

This splendour drew upon it the attack of the Vandals, who stripped it of all its treasures. Saint Leo the Great restored it about 460, and it was again restored by Hadrian I, but in 896 it was almost totally destroyed by an earthquake ("ab altari usque ad portas cecidit"). The damage was so extensive that it was difficult to trace in every case the lines of the old building, but these were in the main respected and the new building was of the same dimensions as the old. 

This second church lasted for four hundred years and was then burnt down. It was rebuilt by Clement V and John XXII, only to be burnt down once more in 1360, but again rebuilt by Urban V.

THE SECOND CHURCH

Through these various vicissitudes the basilica retained its ancient form, being divided by rows of columns into aisles, and having in front an atrium surrounded by colonnades with a fountain in the middle. The facade had three windows, and was embellished with a mosaic representing Christ as the Saviour of the world. 

The porticoes of the atrium were decorated with frescoes, probably not dating further back than the twelfth century. 

THE FRESCOES

When the popes returned to Rome from their absence at Avignon they found the city deserted and the churches almost in ruins. Great works were begun at the Lateran by Martin V and his successors. The palace, however, was never again used by them as a residence, the Vatican, which stands in a much drier and healthier position, being chosen in its place. 

It was not until the latter part of the seventeenth century that the church took its present appearance, in the restoration carried out by Innocent X, with Borromini for his architect. Some portions of the older buildings still survive. 

SEVEN ALTARS

From the fifth century there were seven oratories surrounding the basilica. These before long were thrown into the actual church. The devotion of visiting these oratories, which held its ground all through the medieval period, gave rise to the similar devotion of the seven altars, still common in many churches of Rome and elsewhere. 

Between the basilica and the city wall there was in former times the great monastery, in which dwelt the community of monks whose duty it was to provide the services in the basilica. The only part of it which still survives is the cloister, surrounded by graceful columns of inlaid marble. They are of a style intermediate between the Romanesque proper and the Gothic, and are the work of Vassellectus and the Cosmati. The date of these beautiful cloisters is the early part of the thirteenth century.

MUCH HAS BEEN PRESERVED

The ancient apse, with mosaics of the fourth century, survived all the many changes and dangers of the Middle Ages. 

The high altar, which formerly occupied the position customary in all ancient basilicas, in the centre of the chord of the apse, has now beyond it, owing to the successive enlargements of the church, the whole of the transverse nave and of the new choir. It has no saint buried beneath it, since it was not, as were almost all the other great churches of Rome, erected over the tomb of a martyr.

It stands alone among all the altars of the Catholic world in being of wood and not of stone, and enclosing no relics of any kind. The reason for this peculiarity is that it is itself a relic of a most interesting kind, being the actual wooden altar upon which St Peter is believed to have celebrated Mass during his residence in Rome. 

ST PETER'S WOODEN ALTAR

It was carefully preserved through all the years of persecution, and was brought by Constantine and Sylvester from St Pudentiana’s, where it had been kept till then, to become the principal altar of the cathedral church of Rome. It is now, of course, enclosed in a larger altar of stone and cased with marble, but the original wood can still be seen.

 Excerpts from Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913