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San Silvestro In Capite
The Basilica of Saint Sylvester the First, also known as (, ), is a Roman Catholic minor basilica and titular church in Rome dedicated to Pope Sylvester I (d. AD 335). It is located on the Piazza San Silvestro, at the corner of Via del Gambero and the Via della Mercede, and stands adjacent to the central Post Office. Built in the 8th century as a shrine for the relics of the saints and martyrs from the Catacombs, the church is the national church of Great Britain. The Latin words "in capite" refers to the canonical title of Pope Sylvester the First, to which ''in capite'' means ''in First, in Chief, or in Head''. The basilica is also famous for a relic, a fragment of a head purported to be that of John the Baptist, kept in a chapel to the left of the entrance. A second Roman church dedicated to Pope Sylvester I is San Silvestro al Quirinale. The current Cardinal-Priest is Louis-Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun, Apostolic Vicar of Vientiane. History The original church was built ...
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National Churches In Rome
Charitable institutions attached to churches in Rome were founded right through the medieval period and included hospitals, hostels, and others providing assistance to pilgrims to Rome from a certain "nation", which thus became these nations' national church (Roman Catholicism), national churches in Rome (). These institutions were generally organized as confraternity, confraternities and funded through charity and legacies from rich benefactors belonging to that "nation". Often, they were also connected to national (ancestors of Rome's seminary, seminaries), where the clergymen of that nation were trained. The churches and their riches were a sign of the importance of their nation and of the prelates that supported them. Up to 1870 and Italian unification, these national churches also included churches of the Italian states (now called "regional churches"). Many of these organizations, lacking a purpose by the 19th century, were expropriated through the 1873 legislation on ...
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Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization. O'Collins, p. v (preface). The church consists of 24 ''sui iuris'' (autonomous) churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies around the world, each overseen by one or more bishops. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church. The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles, and that the pope is the successor of Saint Peter, upo ...
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Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III (; born Lotario dei Conti di Segni; 22 February 1161 – 16 July 1216) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 until his death on 16 July 1216. Pope Innocent was one of the most powerful and influential of the medieval popes. He exerted a wide influence over the Christian states of Europe, claiming supremacy over all of Europe's kings. He was central in supporting the Catholic Church's reforms of ecclesiastical affairs through his decretals and the Fourth Lateran Council. This resulted in a considerable refinement of Western canon law. He is furthermore notable for using interdict and other censures to compel princes to obey his decisions, although these measures were not uniformly successful. Innocent greatly extended the scope of the Crusades, directing crusades against Muslim Iberia and the Holy Land as well as the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in southern France. He organized the Fourth Crusade of 1202&nd ...
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Campanile
A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell towers, often part of a municipal building, an educational establishment, or a tower built specifically to house a carillon. Church bell towers often incorporate clocks, and secular towers usually do, as a public service. The term campanile (, also , ), from the Italian ''campanile'', which in turn derives from ''campana'', meaning "bell", is synonymous with ''bell tower''; though in English usage campanile tends to be used to refer to a free standing bell tower. A bell tower may also in some traditions be called a belfry, though this term may also refer specifically to the substructure that houses the bells and the ringers rather than the complete tower. The tallest free-standing bell tower in the world, high, is the Mortegliano Bell To ...
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Catacombs
Catacombs are man-made underground passages primarily used for religious purposes, particularly for burial. Any chamber used as a burial place is considered a catacomb, although the word is most commonly associated with the Roman Empire. Etymology and history The first place to be referred to as ''catacombs'' was the system of underground tombs between the 2nd and 3rd milestones of the Appian Way in Rome, where the bodies of the apostles Peter and Paul, among others, were said to have been buried. The name of that place in Late Latin was ''catacumbas'' (feminine nominative plural; the singular is ''catacumba'') — a word of obscure origin, possibly deriving from a proper name or a derivation of the Greek phrase ''cata cumbas'', "below the quarries". The word referred originally only to the Roman catacombs, but was extended by the 19th century to refer to any subterranean receptacle of the dead, as in the 18th-century Paris catacombs. The ancient Christians carved the firs ...
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Sol Invictus
Sol Invictus (, "Invincible Sun" or "Unconquered Sun") was the official Solar deity, sun god of the late Roman Empire and a later version of the god Sol (Roman mythology), Sol. The emperor Aurelian revived his cult in 274 AD and promoted Sol Invictus as the chief god of the empire. From Aurelian onward, Sol Invictus often appeared on imperial coinage, usually shown wearing a sun crown and driving a horse-drawn chariot through the sky. His prominence lasted until the emperor Constantine the Great, Constantine I legalized Christianity and restricted paganism. The last known inscription referring to Sol Invictus dates to AD 387, although there were enough devotees in the fifth century that the Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo, Augustine found it necessary to preach against them. In recent years, the scholarly community has become divided on Sol between traditionalists and a growing group of revisionists. In the traditional view, ''Sol Invictus'' was the second of two dif ...
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Pope Stephen III
Pope Stephen III (; 720 – 24 January 772) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 7 August 768 to his death on 24 January 772. Stephen was a Benedictine monk who worked in the Lateran Palace during the reign of Pope Zachary. In the midst of a tumultuous contest by rival factions to name a successor to Pope Paul I, Stephen was elected with the support of the Roman officials. He summoned the Lateran Council of 769, which sought to limit the influence of the nobles in Papal selection before 1059, papal elections. The council also opposed iconoclasm. Early career A Greeks, Greek born in Sicily, Stephen III was the son of a man named Olivus.Mann, pg. 369 Coming to Rome during the pontificate of Pope Gregory III, he was placed in the San Crisogono, monastery of St. Chrysogonus, where he became a Benedictine monk. During the pontificate of Pope Zachary, he was ordained a priest, after which the pope decided to keep him to work at the Lateran Palace. Stephen gradual ...
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Pope Paul I
Pope Paul I (; 70028 June 767) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the emerging Papal States from 29 May 757 to his death on 28 June 767. He first served as a Roman deacon and was frequently employed by his brother, Pope Stephen II, in negotiations with the Lombard kings. Rise Paul was a Roman aristocrat and member of the Orsini family.George L. Williams, ''Papal Genealogy'' (London 2004). He and his brother Stephen had been educated for the priesthood at the Lateran Palace. Stephen became pope in 752. After Stephen's death on 26 April 757, Paul prevailed over a faction that wanted to make Archdeacon Theophylact pope and was chosen to succeed his brother by the majority that wished a continuation of Stephen's policy. Pontificate Paul I's reign was dominated by relations with the Frankish and Lombard kings and with the Eastern Roman emperor. He wrote to Pepin the Short that the Frankish alliance should be maintained unimpaired. Paul was likely concerned of the danger po ...
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John The Baptist
John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist Christianity, Christian traditions, and as the prophet Yahya ibn Zakariya in Islam. He is sometimes referred to as John the Baptiser. John is mentioned by the History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish historian Josephus, and he is revered as a major religious figure in Christianity, Islam, the Baháʼí Faith, the Druze faith, and Mandaeism; in the last of these he is considered to be the final and most vital prophet. He is considered to be a prophet of God in Abrahamic religions, God by all of the aforementioned faiths, and is honoured as a saint in many Christian denominations. According to the New Testament, John anticipated a messianic figure greater than himself; in the Gospels, he is portrayed as the precursor or forerunn ...
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Relic
In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains or personal effects of a saint or other person preserved for the purpose of veneration as a tangible memorial. Relics are an important aspect of some forms of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, shamanism, and many other religions. ''Relic'' derives from the Latin ''reliquiae'', meaning "remains", and a form of the Latin verb ''relinquere'', to "leave behind, or abandon". A reliquary is a shrine that houses one or more religious relics. In classical antiquity In ancient Greece, a polis, city or Greek temple, sanctuary might claim to possess, without necessarily displaying, the remains of a venerated hero as a part of a Greek hero cult, hero cult. Other venerable objects associated with the hero were more likely to be on display in sanctuaries, such as spears, shields, or other weaponry; chariots, ships or Figurehead (object), figureheads; furniture such a ...
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Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area around Rome, Italy. Through the expansion of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. It has greatly influenced many languages, Latin influence in English, including English, having contributed List of Latin words with English derivatives, many words to the English lexicon, particularly after the Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England, Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest. Latin Root (linguistics), roots appear frequently in the technical vocabulary used by fields such as theology, List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names, the sciences, List of medical roots, suffixes and prefixes, medicine, and List of Latin legal terms ...
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