The First Friday Station of Lent
Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo stands on the western slope of the Celio—a serene, ancient hill overlooking the heart of the Eternal City—and serves as the Roman stational church for the Friday after Ash Wednesday. In the traditional Roman Lenten itinerary, this station marks a pivotal moment: the gathering of the faithful at a basilica dedicated to martyrs whose witness echoes the earliest struggles of the Church in Rome.
Today’s Video Tour of Santi Giovanni e Paolo
From Martyrdom to Basilical Memory
At the heart of the basilica’s spiritual identity are Saints John and Paul, two Roman Christian soldiers put to death in 362 under Emperor Julian the Apostate. According to tradition, their martyrdom took place in their own home on this very site, where they refused to renounce their faith. Their burial here became a locus of veneration, and by 398 a church had been erected over their domus, establishing one of Rome’s earliest Christian worship sites and anchoring this place in the memory of the Roman faithful.
Over the centuries, Santi Giovanni e Paolo endured the vicissitudes of history—damage during the Sack of Rome by Alaric in 410, earthquake repairs, and later medieval reconstructions—yet its sacred purpose remained unchanged: a place where the witness of martyrs shapes the devotion of those on pilgrimage.
The Liturgy of Witness
The Roman station liturgy here is not merely commemorative—it is participatory. On this Friday after Ash Wednesday, the Church invites the faithful to consider the cost of Christian discipleship by entering a basilica whose very foundations are entwined with the testimony of martyrs. In ancient Rome, martyrdom was not abstract but embodied; these were individuals who lived and died for the faith in the city of Rome itself, and their bones rest in a place still consecrated by prayer.
Devotion to Saints John and Paul grew quickly in the early Church. Their names were inserted into the Roman Canon of the Mass by the fifth century, a testimony to their early and enduring importance in liturgical memory.
Art, Archaeology, and the Layers of Memory
The basilica today blends ancient, medieval, and modern layers. Inside, a classic basilical plan of three aisles is defined by columns and arches that recall the early Christian grandeur of Rome’s formative centuries. Over the centuries many artists contributed works here; among them are pieces by Antoniazzo Romano and Pomarnacio, whose art helps bridge ancient devotion with Renaissance piety.
Beneath the basilica lie the Case Romane del Celio—a remarkable complex of ancient Roman houses uncovered beneath the church. Excavations in the late 19th century revealed a series of rooms and frescoes dating from the 1st through the 4th centuries, remnants of a domestic quarter that bore witness to the life of the martyrs and the Christian communities that gathered there.
Here the pilgrim can descend not only into Rome’s physical depths but into its spiritual origins: the house that became a shrine, the burial place that became a basilica, and the memory of martyrs that became the rhythm of Lenten worship.
The Station Today
On this Friday after Ash Wednesday, the Church in Rome gathers at Santi Giovanni e Paolo to begin Lent with more than private prayer or ascetic resolve—it begins with communion in the witness of the saints, the martyrs whose blood became the seed of the Church. In entering this basilica, the pilgrim joins a lineage of believers who have knelt here for sixteen centuries, recalling not only Christ’s Passion but the witness of those who followed Him even unto death.
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The full Lenten itinerary can be found here at the sticky post with links to every video tour of the Roman Station Churches available at Crux Stationalis.
I propose two works for your Lenten meditations and beyond Lent to concentrate your prayer on the Passion of Christ and his Love for you in His Passion: 31 Days of Meditations on the Passion written by a Passionist Father and Flowers of the Passion by St. Paul of the Cross.
Crux Stationalis 