Some of the Apostles lie buried in Rome's basilicas

By Patricia Kasten
Compass Associate Editor

First in a two-part series

"It's a really, really big church."

Until 1989, the title of world's largest Christian church building belonged to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. (In 1989, that title went to the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukor, Ivory Coast, which is patterned after St. Peter's.)

However, St. Peter's remains the top draw amongst the churches of Rome. (There are more than 900.) Yet St. Peter's is only one of four major basilicas in Rome. And it is not the "head" church among those four.

St. John Lateran

"The mother and head of all the churches of the city (Rome) and the world" is the title belonging to St. John Lateran - officially named "The Patriarchal Basilica of the Most Holy Savior and St. John the Baptist at the Lateran."

Its feast day is Nov. 9, since it was officially dedicated on Nov. 9, 324, by Pope Sylvester I. The original building was much older. It had belonged to a Roman senator, Plautius Lateranus, and was confiscated by the Emperor Nero (AD 37-68). About 250 years later, in 313 AD, the Emperor Constantine gave the Lateran Palace to Pope Melchiades. Construction of the original St. Peter's did not begin until around the year 326 AD, making the Lateran at least 300 years older.

Despite the magnificence and size of Rome's four main basilicas (St. Peter's can hold 60,000 worshippers), it is important to remember that these churches started out as all early Christian churches started - as places to gather together to worship God and to profess the basics of our faith.

The earliest Christian churches were home churches. But, as congregations grew larger than just family and friends, separate worship sites had to be built. Most often, these were constructed over the graves of martyrs - those who had witnessed the faith to the point of death, conforming themselves to Christ even in their bodies. That is why later Christians gathered to worship in the catacombs - united with their faithful dead - and why relics of saints were buried beneath or inside altars.

St. John Lateran continued that tradition - not only are several popes buried there, including Pope Leo XIII in 1903 - but the heads of both Peter and Paul are said to rest in the ornate baldacchino above the main altar.

St. Peter's

The same tradition holds for the majestic St. Peter's Basilica (the second church by that name built on the same site). Its 5.7-acre structure rests over the grave of St. Peter, the first of the popes. While tradition had always taught that Peter was buried under the main altar of the basilica, excavations in the 1950s and 1960s confirmed that fact.

The first St. Peter's was built by the Roman emperor Constantine in the early fourth century, over a cemetery that had been the site of the Circus of Nero. It was in Nero's circus that some of the first Christian martyrdoms took place, starting in 64 AD. It may have also been the site of Peter's crucifixion.

St. Paul Outside the Walls

The apostolic burial tradition also applies to the basilica dedicated to St. Paul. Last year, on Dec. 11, archaeologists announced that they had confirmed what tradition had taught since the first century: that the Apostle to the Gentiles was buried beneath its main altar. An inscription above a stone sarcophagus there reads: "Paul Apostle Martyr." The present church, almost entirely rebuilt after a fire in 1823, dates back to Constantine. The Emperor Theodosius had a church built there in 390, over the site of what was said to be Paul's family tomb.

St. Mary Major

The last of the four major Roman basilicas is dedicated to Mary as the Mother of God, a doctrine formalized in 431 AD. (There was a great controversy over giving Mary this title, and it took a church council - the Council of Ephesus in that year - to settle it.) This basilica is also known as the Liberian Palace, for Pope Liberius who laid out its first floor plan in 352, after a Aug. 4-5 snowfall that was attributed to Mary's intervention. (This is the origin of Mary's title of Our Lady of the Snows.)

The present basilica, built along the classic lines of a Roman basilica (governmental office building) dates to Pope Sixtus III in the mid-fifth century. Its interior gives a true feel of those ancient Roman governmental palaces.

St. Mary Major also claims to be the site of the tomb of an apostle - St. Matthias, who was elected to the place of Judas Iscariot. St. Jerome, the Latin translator of the Bible who died in Bethlehem in 420 AD, is also reportedly buried there.

These two saintly tombs, while located near the main altar, are not directly beneath that altar as in the other churches. Instead, the Bethlehem Crypt rests in that place of honor in St. Mary Major. There, in a little chapel, sits a reliquary that holds wood said to hold the crib of Jesus.

While these four basilicas are the final resting place of several saints - and other leaders of the church - they are also called "patriarchal" basilicas. This means they contain papal altars, which only the pope can use. But it also meant that they testify to the earliest geographical branches of the church.

NEXT: Churches of the Fathers