The Archbasilica of St. John Lateran: The Cathedral of the World

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - November 2003

"The most holy Church of the Lateran, the mother and head of all the churches of the city and the world!"

Those words, in Latin, greet every pilgrim entering through the front door of the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran in Rome and clearly proclaim the Lateran's significance in Christianity.

The Lateran is the mother of every church edifice because it was the first Christian basilica in history; it is the head, because Rome, the see of St. Peter, is the principal local Church in the world, and the Lateran is the principal Church of the Diocese of Rome. The Lateran, not St. Peter's, is the Pope's Cathedral, where his cathedra, the chair symbolic of his teaching authority, rests. The Lateran, not the Vatican, is where the Popes resided for the first millennium of legalized Christianity.

This is the reason why on November 9 all the members of the daughter Churches throughout the world celebrate the feast of the dedication of their Head andMother. St. John Lateran is, we can loosely say, the Cathedral of the world.

The history of the Lateran is, in many ways, the history of the Church as a whole. Over the course of the centuries, the Lateran has been pillaged by vandals, decimated by fire three times, toppled by an earthquake, and neglected by the Popes and people sometimes for decades. After every fall on its Way of the Cross through time, however, the Lateran rose again, continuing to proclaim to the city and the world the Church's faith, through the words of the popes and five ecumenical councils held there, and through the language of its art and architecture.

The symbolism of the latter is a potent summary of the faith.

• At the top of the center of the façade stands the Risen Christ, demonstrating that to enter the Church, we must enter into Christ's body.
• Directly underneath this statue is the Papal loggia, from which the Popes address the faithful. The placement is not coincidental: the Popes are meant literally to stand-under Christ as his vicar on earth — "he who hears you, hears me" — so that we might better under-stand what the Lord is asking of us.
• Directly above the pillars and the pilasters on the façade are 12 bishops of the early Church famed for their teaching of the faith (called "doctors"), to symbolize that the visible face of the Church is found in the hierarchy of bishops throughout the East and West who teach authoritatively in the name of Christ.
• Each of the huge foundational pillars of the basilica's interior contains an enormous statue of one of the apostles, to symbolize that the Church is built literally on the foundation of the Apostles.
• In the baldachino above the altar, there are busts of SS. Peter and Paul, the founders of the Church of Rome, to indicate that the Pope who celebrates Mass on that altar is the living Rock on whom Christ has built his Church and the living Doctor (teacher) of the Gentiles.
• Finally, above the papal cathedra at the apse in the back of the Church, there is an ancient mosaic with face of Christ the Savior hovering over his Cross, depicted full of precious Jewels. The Papal Cathedra, the symbol of the teaching authority of the Pope, rests therefore directly underneath Christ and his throne — the Cross — on which the King of Kings was exalted.

That last mosaic points to the original and true name of the Basilica, which Pope St. Sylvester dedicated to "Christ the Savior" soon after the emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 and built it — the first Christian basilica — to be the principal Church of the bishop and faithful of Rome. When Pope Sergius III rebuilt it after a 9th century earthquake, he rededicated it to the Savior through the intercession of St. John the Baptist; Pope Lucius II (1144-1145) added the intercession of St. John the Evangelist to the dedication. This is how it obtained its present common name, the Archbasilica of St. John in the Lateran.

The feast of its dedication this month is an opportunity for us, in her daughter Churches throughout the world, to rededicate ourselves to Christ, the Savior, to whom this Church — and the Church universal which it symbolizes — is dedicated!

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.