Roman Station Church for Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

Sant'Anastasia

For the Lenten Station Churches throughout this liturgical season, I thought it would be suitable to share some reflections from George Weigel’s 2013 book, Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches.

Nestled among the remains of the Circus Maximus and the imperial palace on the Palatine Hill, the Basilica of St. Anastasia—a name derived from the Greek word for “resurrection”—challenges the glories of a long-gone empire with the enduring witness of the Christian martyrs. With its broad brick façade and unadorned piazza, the church looks decidedly less glamorous than her pagan neighbors. Here, pilgrims used to gather with the pope on Ash Wednesday to begin the walk to St. Sabina on the Aventine Hill. The class struggles between the working-class Aventine and the aristocratic Palatine were aired in the Circus Maximus, wedged between the two. In the unity of the Christian faith, these two hills are now joined through prayer and penance. St. Anastasia is believed to have been the daughter of a Roman noble, Praetextatus, and was born in modern-day Serbia during the era of Diocletian. Her Passio recounts that St. Chrysogonus was her catechist and that she was martyred on the Ligurian Island of Palmaria on December 25. The church was already famous by the end of the fifth century. St. Jerome is reputed to have used St. Anastasia as his parish: the ancient altar on the left is believed to have been his, and the church also claims to have a chalice used by this Doctor of the Church. Pope St. Damasus (366–384) commissioned an apse fresco in honor of the saint, and a few years later a baptismal font was incorporated into the church, the first of its kind documented in Rome. The church was embellished by successive popes with mosaics and frescoes. Only a few repairs were made to the building during the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, however; thus, the resurrection of St. Anastasia began in the Baroque period, when Pope Urban VIII rebuilt the façade in 1664 and commissioned his team of artists to embellish the interior. The high altar was moved to its present position, and Ercole Ferrata, a close collaborator of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, sculpted the image of St. Anastasia at the moment she departed this life for heaven. The chapel of relics contains frescoes showing the lives of Sts. Charles Borromeo and Philip Neri; Domenichino was hired to paint the image of St. Jerome. Portuguese cardinal Nuno da Cunha restored the church again in 1722, adding soft pastel colors to the nave and vault to lighten the effect of the heavy piers that had been added to support the structure. He commissioned Michelangelo Cerruti to paint The Martyrdom of the Saints on the ceiling. The church has experienced another revival in the twenty-first century, serving as a sacristy during World Youth Day 2000, when 700,000 consecrated hosts were reserved here for Eucharistic celebrations in the Circus Maximus. In 2001, St. Anastasia became the first Roman church to hold perpetual Eucharistic adoration. The initiative spread from here to different parishes throughout the world. Lodged amid ancient architecture, modern mementos connect Eucharistic adoration at this site to the same devotion in Colombia, Peru, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, and other far-flung places.