Each year on November 9th, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. Because the feast is not a holy day of obligation you might not be that aware of the significance of this celebration. This year the feast falls on a Sunday and so we should take the opportunity to study it more in depth.
Observance of Holy days are usually to celebrate the life of Jesus Christ and the lives of his saints, so why are we celebrating a building? During the first three centuries after the death of Christ, the Church was heavily persecuted. The Mass was celebrated in many places that today would seem strange, in private homes, at the burial grounds of the saints (the catacombs), and even under the hulls of boats…just about anywhere that the people felt was safe to practice the Faith.
The first Roman emperor to recognize the Church was Constantine I. In February 313 A.D. the Edict of Milan was proclaimed to treat Christians respectfully in the Roman Empire. It gave the Church legal status and freedom from persecution. With this freedom, early Christians began to build dedicated buildings, churches, to hold their services. That same year, the emperor presented Pope Miltiades (311-314 A.D.) with the Lateran Palace, the former family home of the emperor’s second wife, Fausta of the noble Roman family Laterani, as a place to host a synod of bishops in 313 A.D. This synod, known as the Lateran Council, was held October 2-4, 313 A.D. Shortly after the council the basilica of the palace was renovated to serve as the papal resident and eventually became the cathedral or official seat of the bishop of Rome, who is the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.
According to the official website of the basilica, “Saint John Lateran is the first Christian Basilica built explicitly to gather the entire city community around its bishop, although Christians had already started to build churches before Constantine came to power: there is mainly literary evidence of them, affirming that forty already existed in Rome, whereas the artistic development is demonstrated by art from the catacombs. This sufficiently shows how Christianity, although persecuted, was so vital that it needed places and means of expression.” This is indeed significant because now the Church had its church!
Pope Sylvester I formally dedicated the basilica in 324 A.D. The anniversary of the dedication of the church has been observed as a feast since the 12th century. The official name of the basilica is Major Papal, Patriarchal and Roman Archbasilica, Metropolitan and Primatial Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in Lateran, Mother and Head of All Churches in Rome and in the World. It is more commonly known as the Lateran Basilica or Saint John Lateran.
If you would like to know more about the Basilica you can visit the official website at https://www.basilicasangiovanni.va/en.html.
God Bless,
Kathryn