Medieval Church in Rome Has Ties to L.A. Catholics

Southern California Roman Catholics know that the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles is one of the newest major churches in America. What many might not know is that they also have ties to one of the most celebrated churches of antiquity in Rome.

Since 1991, the Basilica of the Four Crowned Martyrs, or Santi Quattro Coronati, has been under the mainly ceremonial supervision of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles. Mahony, assigned the basilica as an honor when he was named a cardinal, does not have day-to-day control over the site, but he has been involved in raising funds for the edifice -- and celebrating Mass there during his visits to Rome on church business.

“Quattro Coronati speaks to us about the journey of our faith, from the earliest times to the present day,” said Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the Los Angeles Archdiocese, who has visited the church several times. “As monuments go in a monumental city, this one is modest enough. But it somehow makes a lasting impression because of its ability to connect us with the Christians who have gone before us.” Visitors from Los Angeles should seek it out, he suggested.

Named for four Christian soldiers martyred under the Emperor Diocletian around AD 303, the church and its convent represent what the World Monuments Fund in New York has called one of the most complete medieval ecclesiastical complexes surviving in Rome. Located in central Rome near the Colosseum, it has been the home of a group of cloistered Augustinian nuns since 1564.

The basilica, parts of which date to the 6th century, has proved to be an archeological treasure. After two years of excavation of its foundations as part of a restoration project, investigators have discovered what may be one of the oldest baptisteries in Rome. Built of red brick, it is located at one corner of an inner courtyard surrounded by a 13th century cloister.

Water had been seeping into the walls and threatening ancient frescoes. “We were trying to put in pipes to drain water away from the building,” Mahony told a group of visitors while he was in Rome last month to join 114 other voting cardinals for the historic conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI. Then workers stumbled upon what appeared to be a red brick bathtub that had been converted into a baptistery. Mahony was unable to place a precise date on it, but said it was built in “the early centuries” of Christianity.

Frescoes thought to date to the mid-13th century have been uncovered in an area on an upper floor known as the Gothic hall. Beneath the floors of the first floor chapel of St. Sylvester, consecrated in 1247, early Christian martyrs are buried. They were slaughtered in the Colosseum. The chapel’s walls are adorned with frescoes retelling the story of Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity after he was said to be cured of leprosy. A Latin inscription above its altar declares, “God reigns from the cross.”

The basilica also once served as a cardinal’s palace and as a fortress for the defense of the nearby Basilica of St. John Lateran, which served as the official residence of popes through the Middle Ages. St. John Lateran remains the cathedral church of the pope in his capacity as bishop of Rome.

The practice of linking a titular church to each cardinal had its origins in early church history, when the College of Cardinals was appointed from among clergy in Rome. Since then, the church has grown to a 1.1-billion member worldwide body, and most cardinals no longer reside in the Roman diocese. But every cardinal, regardless of his location in the world, is assigned one of the hundreds of churches in Rome. Mahony is the first Los Angeles cardinal to be attached to Santi Quattro Coronati.

The oldest part of Santi Quattro Coronati was built on the remains of an elaborate Roman villa dating from late Imperial times.

Over the centuries, the church suffered many calamities. It was sacked by troops of the Norman leader Robert Guiscard, and burned to the ground in 1084. It has been rebuilt, modified and restored many times.

For example, the present nave, where parishioners sit for Mass, is far smaller than the original basilica. Because of that, the downsized nave is out of proportion to a bulbous apse -- a semicircular area on the east end of the church that includes the altar.

Frank Brownstead, director of music at the Los Angeles cathedral, said the Roman church was connected by an underground tunnel to the nearby Basilica of St. John Lateran.

“When Rome was sacked and under siege by the barbarians, the pope would go through the tunnel from St. John Lateran to the Four Crowned Martyrs and hide with the nuns,” said Brownstead, who accompanied Mahony to Rome on a previous visit.

Despite the basilica’s storied past, circumstances relegated it at times to relative obscurity and disrepair. Then, the World Monuments Fund placed the church on its list of 100 most endangered sites in 2000 and 2002. It has contributed $600,000 toward its restoration.

The J. Paul Getty Grant Program also contributed $62,500 in 1999 to the Los Angeles Archdiocese to develop a comprehensive conservation plan for the basilica’s 13th century cloister.

What has remained constant, however, is the basilica as a place where Holy Communion has been celebrated from the 6th century to the present.

It was there Mahony celebrated Mass beneath 17th century frescoes of saints for about 70 worshipers on the eve of the papal conclave last month.

The Basilica of the Four Crowned Martyrs is a place where the past and present intersect, where ancient walls embedded with the residue of incense from days gone by reverberate with contemporary antiphons -- liturgical texts sung responsively.

A young nun soprano led the singing. After each of her solo verses, the churchgoers, accompanied by a flutist, responded with a melodic chorus of affirmation.

When the Mass ended, worshipers walked out of the basilica on a rainy morning as a nun in a black and white habit bade them farewell. Smiling gently, she then closed a heavy wooden door in a medieval wall. Santi Quattro Coronati was once again an island of antiquity in the 21st century.