Day of consecration of the Lateran Basilica
The Lateran Basilica , consecrated to the Most Holy Redeemer and, since the 12th century, also to St. John the Baptist , is the oldest papal church and bears the title “Mother and Head of all Churches in the World”. Therefore, the day of consecration of the Lateran Basilica is a festival in the general Roman calendar .
Emperor Constantine the Great donated the Lateran Palace to the church. The Popes resided in the Lateran Palace from the 4th to the 14th centuries. The adjoining basilica was built by Constantine and consecrated by Pope Silvester I in 324 . The church was repeatedly damaged over the centuries by fires, earthquakes and looting, but it was repeatedly repaired. Benedict XIII. consecrated the Lateran basilica again on April 28, 1726 after major restoration work and confirmed November 9 as the day of consecration of the basilica . The inscription above the gable on the east facade of the basilica reads: OMNIVM VRBIS ET ORBIS ECCLESIARVM MATER ET CAPVT.
The Lateran Basilica is one of the six patriarchal basilicas (Basilica maior), four of which are in Rome.
Since the feast of the consecration as a gentlemen's feast has a high rank in the liturgical hierarchy , in years in which it falls on a Sunday, it displaces the Sunday in the annual cycle .
Remarks
- ↑ Schott-Messbuch for the Sundays and holidays of reading year B; Original texts of the authentic German edition of the missal book and the measuring lecturer / with introductory ed. by the Benedictines of the Beuron Archabbey, Verlag Herder, Freiburg 1990, p. 719.