OUR CHURCH AT ROME

History:

The Basilica Santa Maria in Cosmedin, ceded towards the end of Vatican Council II to our late Patriarch Maximos IV Sayegh, and later confided to his successor Maximos V, has in this way been affected to the Byzantine rite, just as it was in the days when Pope Adrian I confided it to the Greeks finding refuge in Rome, at the time of the iconoclastic crisis, in the eighth century.

It is a monument in a composite style, a fusion of Doric and Corinthian, which has undergone considerable transformation down the centuries

Our church, like a lone and majestic sentinel standing guard over the past, stands at the threshold of the Valley of Murcia, so named because of the myrtles which abound in the neighborhood. The Tiber is close by, as are the hills which witnessed the birth of Rome, the Aventine, and the Palatine and a little further away, the Capitol.

The Aventine stood at the crossroads of the great communication routes of Antiquity, the Appian and Ostian Ways, which linked Rome with the rest of the world, while the Tiber led to the nearby sea. This hill, of easier access than the others to «those from outside», provided a ready place of settlement for the foreigners who landed.

On the summit of this hill there is to be found the small basilica of St Prisca, with origins going far back in time, since it was built on the site of the house of Prisca and Aquila, whom St Paul called «my helpers in Christ Jesus». (Romans XVI 3, 5). There St Peter certainly administered baptism to the first catechumens, so it was in effect the cradle of the Church of Rome. St Paul also must have stayed in this house.

The other part of the Aventine conserves the memory of St Saba, the glorious representative of eastern monachism whose church stands on the site of the house of St Sylvia, mother of St Gregory the Great, the site also of the first monastic foundation of Rome, one which came into existence under the influence of the East. Here is what the chronicle says: «When the illustrious Athanasius, Patriarch of Egypt, thanks to whom the Christian world was rescued from Arianism, came to Rome in/340, he stayed on the Aventine in the house of the matron Albina. His own/example and that of the two monks of Alexandria who served as his/secretaries excited the admiration of the noble lady and of her daughter Marcella. The latter did not hesitate to consecrate her to the Lord and to embrace the ascetic practices which were already traditional in the East. She founded in her house the first convent of Rome».

The ecumenical character of the Aventine is to be found in the way its churches are named: St Prisca's and St Saba's are of oriental foundation and were for a long time served by oriental monks. Afterwards western orders and convents came to continue this ancient tradition, a sacred tradition of one and the same Church whose unity does not exclude diversity.

Standing at the foot of the Aventine, Santa Maria in Cosmedin expresses most eloquently this ecumenical character marking the Aventine since early times. It expresses the universality of the Church and it stresses the unity underlying its diversity of rite, of race, of language, of culture and of mentality. Brothers in Christ from the East and from the West strive together for the good of the Church, pooling their patrimony of science and of sanctity for the service of God and of mankind.

In June 1972, H.H. Paul VI, whose desire it was to confide this ancient basilica to Maximos IV, expressed himself on the subject as follows:

«It is never without object to know His dwelling when it is itself a school, by which we mean a theme of historical, artistic and religious study. Santa Maria in Cosmedin is a symbol of this reality which is Rome, for this delightful basilica has its origins in the first memories we have of the Eternal City, both pagan and Christian, and defines its historical physiognomy by the relations that Rome had with the Grecian East; «ripa graeca» was the name of this strip alongside the Tiber, where there are also other edifices to recall for us the presence of a populous Byzantine colony, for which Pope Adrian I (772-795) wished to completely rebuild, enlarge and embellish the local deaconry, which since then has borne precisely the title of «in Cosmedin», signifying exactly «embellish».

With this edifice, known for its sacred and symbolic value, the passage of one's thoughts to the finalities it is to serve comes all the easier».

Parish

Rt. Rev. Archimandrite Mtanios Haddad, BS,
Santa Maria in Cosmedin
Piazza Bocca della Verita
00186 Roma
Internationally 011.39.06.6781419, local from outside Rome: 06.6781419

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For any information updates or amendments, please send an E-mail to GMA:

gma@melkites.org

or alternatively by post to:
Global Melkite Association
Rev Fr Samir Haddad
40 Gillies St Fairfield VIC 3078
Australia