The Shrine of St Michael the Archangel on Mount Gargano

Today is the feast which celebrates the Apparition of St Michael on Mount Gargano in the Italian region of Puglia. I have previously described the circumstances of the apparition in greater detail; there has been a shrine dedicated to him in one form or another on the site ever since it took place at the end of the 5th century. In the entry for his principal feast day in September, the Roman Martyrology describes the shrine as “made in a mean fashion, but outstanding in heavenly might.” In point of fact, much of the church is not “made” at all, at least not by human hands. Gargano is a large massif, rather more like a mesa than a hill, and very steep on the northern side where the sanctuary is, with the town of Monte Sant’Angelo located on top. One enters the shrine through a forecourt in the town, and after passing the doors, descends to the church by a considerable number of steps.

As you descend to the church, you pass this cross, decorated with the symbols of the Passion...

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Learned Blunders: The Impact of Flawed Scholarship on the Liturgical Reforms of the Twentieth Century

Most of the debates about the liturgical reforms of the twentieth century are understandably concerned with theological or ideological elements. Critics of the 1962 Missal worry that the old Mass is too hierarchical and too aligned with an outdated political ideology, a relic of the days of the Ancien Régime. Critics of the 1969 Missal, on other hand, wonder if the new Mass is too egalitarian, modernist, Protestant, Masonic, etc. My goal in this essay, however, is to focus on the role that honest mistakes about historical facts may have played in the formation and implementation of the 1969 Missal.

Honest mistakes about history are different from theological and ideological convictions, although there can be a thin line between the two, and they often influence each other. It is one thing to believe that Mass facing the people is a better way to worship because it is less alienating and more inclusive; it is another thing to believe that the early Church celebrated Mass facing the people. One is a theological opinion that may or may not be true and may be contingent on circumstances; the other is a historical claim that either did or did not happen – period.

But if I believe that the early Church celebrated Mass facing the people, then I might be more inclined to conclude that the Church today should do so as well: in this case, my grasp of the facts shapes my opinion. On the other hand, if I fervently believe that the Church today should have Mass facing the people, I may become predisposed to interpret some archeological data as evidence that the early Church celebrated Mass facing the people; in that case, my opinion shapes my grasp of the facts.

Granted, the adjective “honest” makes my task more complicated, for it presumes to assess the purity of another person’s intention. To avoid any cynical presumption, I will simply assume that the scholars involved in the following blunders acted in good faith.

1. A Patristic Golden Age

A common feature of twentieth-century liturgical scholarship is the conviction that the liturgies of the Patristic era, from the second to the fifth centuries A.D., constitute a Golden Age of sacred worship. I do not know if this belief is an honest historical mistake or a theological conviction or both, but either way it must be mentioned because it influenced and gave great weight to the other mistakes that I will discuss: indeed, it influenced the Council itself. Paragraph 50 of Sacrosanctum Concilium states:

The rite of the Mass is to be revised in such a way that the intrinsic nature and purpose of its several parts, as also the connection between them, may be more clearly manifested, and that devout and active participation by the faithful may be more easily achieved. For this purpose the rites are to be simplified, due care being taken to preserve their substance; elements which, with the passage of time, came to be duplicated, or were added with but little advantage, are now to be discarded; other elements which have suffered injury through accidents of history are now to be restored to the vigor which they had in the days of the holy Fathers, as may seem useful or necessary.

The Latin is even stronger: instead of the “vigor” of the holy Fathers, the document states that certain liturgical elements are to be restored to the “pristine norm” (pristina norma) of the holy Fathers.

While this passage does not explicitly state that the Patristic era, i.e., the time of the Church Fathers, was a Golden Age, it can easily be used to support such a belief, and as such it stands in tension with Pope Pius XII’s 1947 Mediator Dei, which warns precisely against this lens of interpretation:

The liturgy of the early ages is most certainly worthy of all veneration. But ancient usage must not be esteemed more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground that it carries the savor and aroma of antiquity. The more recent liturgical rites likewise deserve reverence and respect. They, too, owe their inspiration to the Holy Spirit, who assists the Church in every age even to the consummation of the world. They are equally the resources used by the majestic Spouse of Jesus Christ to promote and procure the sanctity of man (61).

Pope Pius XII lists examples of decisions that would be wrong-headed: the return of the altar to a primitive table form as well as the suppression of black vestments, sacred images, statues, crucifixes of Christus passus, and polyphony (see 62).

The Holy Father offers a theological reason for rejecting Golden Ageism, namely, that it discounts or even denies the ongoing inspiration of the Holy Spirit on liturgical development—that is, it discounts a providentially guided organic development. Golden Ageism is, at the end of the day, an arbitrary attachment, not a historical fact. Objectively and dispassionately speaking, how do we know that one age is better than another, liturgically or otherwise? I had a wise liturgical studies professor who once said that the difference between Protestant fundamentalists and Catholic fundamentalists is that fundamentalist Protestants try in vain to leapfrog over history and return to the first century while Catholic traditionalists try in vain to leapfrog over history and return to the thirteenth century. Fair enough, yet did not so many twentieth-century liturgical reformers try in vain to leapfrog over history and return to the third or fourth century? Perhaps we all need to stop leapfrogging and recognize that we are the beneficiaries of an ongoing and inspired sacred history.

The tug to the Patristic era was strong. The general consensus in the early- to mid-twentieth century was that the early Church was more communitarian, more egalitarian, and more participatory, and that later developments were misguided and alienating “barnacles” on the Barque that obscured the liturgy’s original vision and purpose. Although there are still stalwart proponents of this view (even in the highest echelons of Church leadership), few dispassionate and serious scholars hold it today. In the understated assessment of Albert Gerhards and Benedikt Kranemann:

This idea was often based on the hypothesis of a degeneration in which the “golden age” of patristics was followed by the “dark Middle Ages” leading to a “rigid standard liturgy” in the period between Trent and Vatican II. This way of looking at the history of liturgy is being radically called into question today. [1]

2. Liturgical Orientation

Because of Golden-Ageism, with its myth of a pristine Patristic norm, any mistake made about how the early Church worshiped was given undue weight by scholars in their reconstruction of the past and in their recommendations for the present.

That is certainly true of the orientation of the priest at Mass. The consensus of scholars in the 1930s was that the Church originally had Mass “facing the people”. This consensus was no doubt influenced by ideology, some of it egalitarian and some of it anti-sacrificial – the idea being that “when” the Church thought of the Eucharist as a meal, it had Mass facing the people, and when it came to think of the Eucharist as a sacrifice, it had Mass facing the apse. [2]

But at least two archeological data also shaped opinion: the existence of free-standing altars in ancient churches, and the fact that some of these churches were built on a west-east axis, with the entrance and façade on the east and the sanctuary on the west. In the latter churches, if the priest were to face East to confect the Eucharist, he would have to “face the people” to do so. What they did not consider (which later scholarship discovered) was the possibility that during the Consecration, the people turned around and faced the East, with the Sacrifice taking place behind them. At that moment the priest and congregation resembled sailors on a ship, with the captain at the helm in the rear as they sailed to meet their Lord, who is to come again from the East. Perhaps that is why a church nave takes its name from the Latin word for ship, navis.

The Second Vatican Council only states that future churches should be built with free-standing altars, and the General Instructions for the (new) Roman Missal presupposes that the priest is turned towards the Lord and not the people during the Consecration. Nevertheless, “Mass facing the people” has been treated as a cornerstone of liturgical renewal, with bishops forbidding priests from celebrating in the traditional manner.

Scholarly doubt about the versus populum position began to emerge shortly after Vatican II. The prominent liturgist Fr. Josef Jungmann dismissed it as “a legend” in 1966. That same year, a member of the Concilium that created the Novus Ordo, Fr. Louis Bouyer, rejected the meal vs. sacrifice dichotomy, pointing out that in antiquity “the communal character of a meal was emphasized…[by] the fact that all the participants were on the same side of the table.” [3] Moroever, Monsignor Klaus Gamber’s Die Reform der römischen Liturgie (The Reform of the Roman Rite) includes a scathing critique of both the theological and historical arguments favoring versus populum. But the definitive treatment of the subject came in 2009 with Fr. Uwe Michael Lang’s Turning towards the Lord, which demonstrates that there has always been a tradition of facing East during liturgical prayer and never a tradition of priest and people facing each other. The book received the approval of Pope Benedict XVI. More recently, Luisella Scrosati has a series on the orientation of Christian worship in Italian that was translated last year into English for the New Liturgical Movement website (see here).

3. Concelebration

Twentieth-century liturgists were so convinced that the early Church has Masses regularly concelebrated by two or more priests that the Second Vatican Council was moved to make the following changes:

Concelebration, whereby the unity of the priesthood is appropriately manifested, has remained in use to this day in the Church both in the east and in the west. For this reason it has seemed good to the Council to extend permission for concelebration to the following cases (Sacrosanctum Concilium 57.1).

The Council goes on to allow concelebration for both the Chrism Mass and evening Mass on Holy Thursday, for Masses during Bishops’ meetings, and for Masses for the blessing of an abbot. It also gives Bishops the authority to allow concelebration at parish Masses, and it calls for a new rite for concelebration to be drawn up and inserted into the Missal and the Pontifical (58). The Council Fathers declare that “each priest shall always retain his right to celebrate Mass individually” (57.2), but many priests today feel pressure to concelebrate every Mass they attend.

There was no definitive or extensive study of concelebration prior to the Second Vatican Council; one wonders how everyone was so confident about a conviction based on so little research. Finally, in 1982, Carmelite Father Joseph de Sainte-Marie published an almost 600 page book entitled L’eucharistie salut du monde, which in 2015 appeared as The Holy Eucharist – The World’s Salvation: Studies on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, its Celebration and its Concelebration (Leominster: Gracewing, 2015). The magnum opus covers a range of topics, such as the sacrificial character of the Eucharist, but it is especially concerned with separating fact from fiction regarding concelebration.

Sainte-Marie’s conclusion, as the back-cover puts it, is that the “present practice of daily concelebration, especially among simple priests without their Ordinary presiding, far from being a return to an ancient norm, is in fact a new development.” Earlier liturgists made a crucial mistake, failing to distinguish between ceremonial concelebration and sacramental concelebration, when two or more ministers confect the same sacrament. Sacramental concelebration happened on occasion, especially with a Mass led by a bishop, but in both the East and the West, the preference was for ceremonial concelebrations and for individually celebrated Masses, which multiplied graces flowing into the world.

Sainte-Marie researched the debates the Council Fathers had about concelebration, and he shows how the Council Fathers were unaware of this distinction. If concelebration remains “in use to this day in the Church both in the east and in the west” as the Council claims, then why do most Orthodox churches refuse sacramental concelebration on principle, and why are the only Eastern Churches that practice sacramental concelebration the ones that are in union with Rome, and even then only beginning in the eighteenth century and only under Western influence?

The World’s Salvation did not come out in time to stop the campaign to make concelebrated the Masses norm, especially in religious communities, but it was able to stop further damage. I am told that plans were being made to make it a requirement of Canon Law that all members of a religious community concelebrate the same Mass, but Sainte-Marie’s scholarship changed their minds.

Unfortunately, the Vatican has recently doubled down on this flawed scholarship by forcing the Anglican Ordinariate to adopt concelebration. For recent treatments on the subject, see here.

4. Ordinary Time

Contrary to a popular misconception, Ordinary Time in the new calendar is not “Ordinal” Time but an Ordinary of Times. [4] Ordinary Time was designed to be a generic season in contrast to the special seasons of Christmas and Easter. The architect of this new schema was Fr. Pierre Jounel, who believed that the Masses of the early Church outside the Christmas and Easter cycles had no special “theme” and that the modern Church should return to that model. Each of the new Sundays in Ordinary Time, he writes, “is a Lord’s Day in its pure state as presented to us in the Church’s tradition,” that is, the state in which the primitive Church celebrated it.

The problem with this thesis is that we do not know for certain what the primitive Church did. Second, Jounel linked indistinction with purity and purity with the early Church, but both assumptions are questionable. Third, he is guilty of archeologism or Golden Age-ism, for Jounel wanted to return to a third-century practice and ignore seventeen hundred years of valid development. Fourth, Jounel is also guilty of novelty (ironically), for the way he endeavored to return to “the Lord’s Day in its pure state” was to invent an entirely new season that not a single soul in the Patristic era would have recognized, for no liturgical calendar prior to that of the Novus Ordo had a single-block season that is “interrupted” by the Easter cycle and that then picks up where it left off. Fifth, despite Jounel’s claim that the new season is indistinct, the final Sundays of Ordinary Time retain the distinctive theme that they had in the previous calendar, that of the End Times.

The 1962 Missal

My criticisms have centered on the scholarship that shaped the 1969 Missal, but that does not mean that the 1962 Missal is flawless. I will mention three, though no doubt there are more.

First, the feast day of Pope St. Felix I (269-274) was mistakenly assigned to May 30 instead of December 30 (the day of his martyrdom) because a medieval scribe wrote “III Kal. Jun.” (third day to the calends of June) instead of “III Kal. Jan.” (third day to the calends of January).

Second, according to tradition, September 14, 326 is the date that St. Helen discovered the True Cross during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and September 14, 335 is the anniversary of the consecration of her son Constantine’s basilicas of the Holy Sepulchre and Calvary in Jerusalem. September 14 was thus celebrated as the Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross. May 3, on the other hand, was the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, celebrating the return of the Cross to Jerusalem in 629 after the Persians had stolen it. Over time, however, the two dates were confused and May 3 became the Feast of the Finding of the Cross and September 14 the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. The May 3 feast was dropped in 1960, and both the 1962 and 1969 calendars still have September 14 as the Feast of the Exaltation or Triumph of the Cross.

Third, the Tridentine Missal’s use of the Vulgate for its biblical readings is not without controversy, for although we have it on the authority of the Council of Trent that the Vulgate is “authentic,” we also know that “authentic” does not mean “infallible,” nor did Trent tell us which edition of the Vulgate was authentic, and there were several competing versions at the time. In the 1962 Missal, the Epistle reading for Low Sunday (1 John 5, 4-10) is different than what are considered the most reliable Greek manuscripts of that passage, particularly verse 7, which does not exist in the oldest manuscripts. [5]

What I find interesting about the errors in the 1962 Missal is that they seem to be mostly the result of failed efforts to retain, while the aforementioned mistakes from the twentieth century are the result of failed efforts to rediscover. The latter is by its nature more fraught with risk and uncertainty, and so it is not surprising that the failures, when they happen, are more egregious.

Conclusions

Two final clarifications are in order.

First, in and of themselves scholarly mistakes do not disqualify a liturgical practice. It is entirely possible that even if something was done in error, it could turn out to be providential, a sort of felix culpa. That said, when new discoveries expose old mistakes, they should be used to consider – with a grain of salt, of course, lest we keep the same slavish mentality to the “experts” – how to move forward. At any rate, since the cure always begins with an accurate diagnosis of the disease, we need to admit that we live in a world of liturgical upheaval, as Peter Jeffrey puts it, “with its own excesses of competing and fanciful historical claims.” [6]

Second, we should not banish scholarship from liturgical decision-making simply because of these mistakes. Scholarship may have been the rope with which we used to hang ourselves, but it is also the same rope that can pull us out of the ditch. Every example of flawed scholarship that we have mentioned has been brought to light by good scholarship, so scholarship per se is not the problem. Scholarship is simply a form of human inquiry, and like any other temporal good, it is subject to abuse, especially in the hands of the proud. And even if it does succeed in creating an accurate view of the past, that does not necessarily mean that it should be used to overthrow later developments or practices. Let the Holy Spirit and not the absent-minded professor have the final say on what goes on in Christ’s Church.

We will look at more learned blunders at a later time.

This article originally appeared in The Latin Mass magazine 35:1 (Spring 2025), pp. 38-42. Many thanks to its editors for allowing its republication here.

Notes

[1] Albert Gerhards and Benedikt Kranemann, Introduction to the Study of Liturgy (Liturgical Press, 2017), pp. 81-82. Gerhards and Kranemann argue that Vatican II avoided “Golden Age-ism” by quoting SC 21, that the liturgy “is made up of unchangeable elements divinely instituted, and of elements subject to change.” One can hold this view, however, and still believe that the Patristic era was the high watermark of liturgy. Moreover, the authors ignore the implications of SC 50’s language of the pristine norm of the Church Fathers.

[2] Such is the contention of Otto Nußbaum, but it is false. The earliest references to the Eucharist, from the second century, refer to it as a sacrifice.

[3] Louis Bouyer, Eucharistie: Theologie et spiritualite de la priere eucharistique (Tournai, 1966) [trans. Charles Underhill Quinn as Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer (Notre Dame, Ind., and London: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1968)], p.55-56, quoted in Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger Collected Works: Theology of the Liturgy.

[4] See my “The Origins and Meaning of Ordinary Time,” Antiphon: A Journal of Liturgical Renewal 23:1 (2019), pp. 43-77. A revised version in two parts also appears on this website, here and here.

[5] Quoniam tres sunt, qui testimonium dant in caelo : Pater, Verbum, et Spiritus Sanctus : et hi tres unum sunt. “And there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one.”

[6] Peter Jeffrey, “Eastern and Western Elements in the Irish Monastic Prayer of the Hours,” in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages, eds. Margot A. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer (Oxford University Press, 2000), 134.

Online Resources for Papal Ceremonies

The creators of the Poland-based website Caeremoniale Romanum have contacted us to share news of a couple of important new resources which they have recently added to the site.

At the following page: https://caeremonialeromanum.com/en/caeremonialia-papalia-dykmans/, you will find links to two different works by the Belgian Jesuit Fr Marc Dykmans. The first is his four volume series, “Le Cérémoniale papale de la fin du Moyen Âge à la Renaissance (Papal Ceremony from the end of the Middle Ages to the Renaissance)”, and the second is his edition (in two volumes) of the papal ceremonial of Agostino Piccolomini (died 1495), which became the basis of all the papal rites used in the Tridentine period. Note that these are critical editions of the relevant liturgical books in the original Latin, with copious notes, prefatory and explanatory in French. There is also a link to another ceremonial from one of the manuscripts in the Vatican Library (Urb. Lat. 469), which predates just predates Piccolomini’s reform, in the edition by Mons. Joaquim Nabuco.

The frontispiece of a copy of Piccolomini’s Caerimoniale, ca. 1500. The kneeling man, whose identity is unknown, presents a copy of the book to Cardinal Georges d’Amboise; the inscription says “My Lord, on my return from Rome, I give you this book.” (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des manuscrits. Latin 938)

The second page: https://caeremonialeromanum.com/en/sacramentaria-romana-sacramentarium-leonianum-gelasianum-gregorianum/ has links to two different editions of the so-called Leonine Sacramentary, three of the Old Gelasian, and three of the Gregorian. We have previously highlighted the editions of the first two by Leo Mohlberg, which are the most recent and up-to-date, but all the subsidiary material on both of them is in German.

As a reminder, the site also has a YouTube channel with many interesting videos of papal liturgies (and not only papal ones.) Since tomorrow marks the first anniversary of Pope Leo’s election, here is a brief one which they posted today of the three occasions in the current century (2005, 2013 and 2025) on which the papal MC pronounced “Extra omnes! - Everyone out!” before the conclaves began.

The Life of St Stanislaus Depicted on a Chasuble

On the general calendar of the Roman Rite, today is the feast of St Stanislaus (1030-79), a priest of Krakow who was well-known as an excellent preacher, and elected bishop of that see in 1072. The king of Poland at the time, Bolesław II, was a talented and capable man, but indulged in many evil deeds; he kidnapped a noblewoman after whom he lusted, and stole property from the Church. For this, Stanislaus excommunicated him, forbidding services to be celebrated in the Wawel Cathedral whenever he was present, in return for which, the king murdered him while he was in the midst of celebrating Mass. He has often been compared to St Thomas Becket, who likewise resisted the importunities of the sovereign against the Church.

St Stanislaus depicted in a manuscript of the Lives of the Bishops of Kraków by Jan Długosz, the principal source for his life, made in the 1530s for Bp Piotr Tomicki, who is depicted venerating him in the company of King Sigismund I and other dignitaries of the church and state. The tiny figure at his feet is the man whom he raised from the dead, as explained below. The inscription in the red plaque on the left reads, “Vir inclite Stanislae vita, signis, passione, gregem tuam, pastor bone, fove benedictione, guberna protectione, sana salva sancta intercessione. – O Stanislaus, renowned for your life, miracles and passion! O good shepherd, support your flock with your blessing, govern it with your protection, heal and save it through your holy intercession!” This is the antiphon at the Magnificat for Second Vespers of his proper Office used in Poland. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) 

It has to be noted that many details of the lives of both men are regarded as historically very uncertain, not least the day of the Stanislaus’ death. The Roman Martyrology places it on May 8th, which is still to this day his feast day in Poland, but he was assigned to today on the general calendar because the 8th was already taken by the Apparition of St Michael. Other sources place it on April 11th, the date to which he has been moved in the post-Conciliar Rite. In his memoire (p. 318 of the English edition), Abp Bugnini notes that in response to the proposed degradation of all the Polish Saints on the general calendar to optional memorials, the bishops of Poland requested that at least one remain obligatory, so that “at least once a year the entire Church might recall how much Poland has suffered for its fidelity to the gospel.” Stanislaus was chosen, but, adding injury to insult, his new date means that his feast will be omitted or reduced to a commemoration in 2 years out of 3.

The treasury of the Wawel cathedral preserves an extraordinary chasuble, made in 1503 for the 250th anniversary of Stanislaus’ canonization, a donation of the governor of Krakow, Piotr Kmita. The main events of the Saint’s life are depicted in very high relief and incredibly complex embroidered panels, mounted on wooden boards, and detailed with pearls, and tiny accessories (like the chalice in one of the scenes) made by goldsmiths. Our thanks to the administrators of the cathedral’s Facebook page for their kind permission to reproduce these detailed photographs of it. Below, we have some photos by our own Nicola de’ Grandi of some other things pertinent to the Saint.

Starting from the bottom, Piotr Kmita is depicted holding his coat of arms.

In the second panel, St Stanislaus buys a village from a knight named Piotr, who dies soon thereafter.

Stanislaus, having been accused of fraud in the transaction, which the king used to justify his theft of the village, raises Piotr from the dead to bear witness to the legitimacy of the sale; in the following panel, the Saint brings him before the king. (Note the incredibly realistic representation of the dead man in both panels.)

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The Feast of St John at the Latin Gate

John was an Apostle, an Evangelist, and a Prophet: an Apostle, because he wrote to the churches as a teacher; an Evangelist, because he wrote a book of the Gospels, which the other twelve Apostles did not do, apart from Matthew; and a Prophet, for on the island of Patmos, whither he had been banished by Domitian because of his testimony to the Lord, he beheld the Apocalypse, which contains such infinite mysteries of the future. And Tertullian says (De praescript. 36, ca. 200 A.D.) that at Rome, he was put into a vessel of boiling oil, but he came out cleaner and healthier than he went in.” (St Jerome in his treatise against Jovinian, the fifth lesson of Matins of the feast. In the homily on the day’s Gospel, St Matthew 20, 20-23, St Jerome explains the Lord’s prophecy to the sons of Zebedee that they will drink the cup of His Passion.)

The Martyrdom of St John the Evangelist, by Charles le Brun, 1641-42, from the church of St Nicholas du Chardonnet in Paris.

“The question arises how the sons of Zebedee, namely, James and John, drank the cup of martyrdom, since Scripture tells that only that James the Apostle was beheaded by Herod, but John died a natural death. But if we read the history of the Church, in which it is told that he also for the sake of his witness (to Christ) was cast into a vessel of boiling oil, and thence went forth as a champion of Christ to receive his crown, and was at once exiled to the island of Patmos, we see that his spirit did not fail at the prospect of martyrdom, and that John did drink the cup of confession that the three children in the fiery furnace also drank, although the persecutor did not shed their blood.” (Commentary on Matthew, book 3, chap. 20)

The right wing of the St John Altarpiece, by Hans Memling, ca. 1479, showing the Apostle John and his vision of the Trinity.

From the lessons at Matins cited above, one would reasonably assume that the principle object of today’s feast is the Apostle’s martyrdom. However, in the Pre-Tridentine Roman Breviary, different lessons were read which make no mention of it, although it is spoken of in the Magnificat antiphon, which carried over into the Breviary of St Pius V: “In ferventis olei dolium missus beatus Joannes Apostolus, divina se protegente gratia, illaesus exivit, alleluia. - Cast into a pot of boiling oil, the blessed Apostle John, protected by divine grace, came out unharmed, alleluia.” From its first appearance in the late 8th-century, it is known as the feast of St John “before the Latin Gate”, even though the walls of which the Latin Gate are a part were built 200 years after St John’s time. The feast therefore most likely originated, like many secondary feasts, as the dedication feast of the small church built in St John’s honor near the Latin Gate, and was only later associated with the episode of the pot of oil.

The church of St John at the Latin Gate is the station church of the Saturday before Palm Sunday, here photographed by our Roman pilgrim friend Agnese on that occasion in 2014. (interior below)

Next door to the main church is the small oratory known as “Saint John in oleo”, said to be on the very spot where the pot of oil was set up; it is attributed to Donatello Bramante, the original architect in charge of rebuilding St Peter’s Basilica in the early 16th-century.

It is also unlikely a mere coincidence that the Byzantine Rite also keeps a secondary feast of St John only two days later. His principal feast is on September 26; since the Byzantine liturgical year begins on September 1st, he is the first in the year among the Twelve Apostles. On May 8th, a commemoration is made of a miracle whereby a manna-like substance came forth from his tomb in the city of Ephesus, which healed the faithful both physically and spiritually. This day was already occupied in the West, from very ancient times, by the feast of the Apparition of St Michael, and this might explain the slight discrepancy in the dates.

St John the Evangelist writing his Gospel on a scroll, ca. 1450, by the Cretan icon painter Andreas Ritzos (1421-92)  

Introducing the Thomistic Artists Guild, with Upcoming Conference and Competitions

NLM received the following notice from Fr. James O’Reilly, FSSP, and is pleased to share it with the public.

Where has beauty in the arts gone? Buildings are gray, woke agendas are tied to a film’s plot, and classical music usually has one or two channels on public radio. Western Civilization experienced a Renaissance before and it is time for another one to begin. Great works of art were often made in prior ages and with the help of God, we can encourage the next generation of artists to make beautiful art once again.

For those of you interested in promoting beauty and excellence in the fine arts, I encourage you to become patrons for the Thomistic Artists Guild, INC. We are a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles that is currently seeking status as a Public Association of the Faithful so we can open up local chapters outside of California.

The five points of our vision are as follows:

• Praying for artists
• Fostering appreciation for the fine arts
• Assisting artists find morally sound work
• Preserving reverence for the Church’s patrimony
• Evangelizing through the fine arts

The Guild is under the patronage of St. Thomas Aquinas because we are encouraging artists to make art with the components of beauty (due proportion, clarity, and integrity) that Thomas writes about. We also have been inspired by Dr. Daniel McInerny’s book Beauty and Imitation to see the seven main types of fine art (music, literature, sculpture, film, theater, painting, and architecture) as mimetic arts that tell our story to pursue happiness, ultimately eternal beatitude in heaven. Guild members make art through this mimetic lens and encourage fellow artists to do the same.

Our Guild members also have a great affinity toward the Vetus Ordo due to its high degree of beauty and the impact it has had on artists throughout history. The Traditional Latin Mass brings many artists to encounter Beauty itself in the Sacred Liturgy which inspires them to make works of art containing due proportion, clarity, and integrity. Michelangelo, Vivaldi, and Tolkien regularly worshiped at the TLM when their artistic masterpieces were made. I hope that future Guild members and patrons are also inspired in their artwork due to their love for the Church’s liturgical patrimony. Many members of Thomistic Artists Guild regularly worship God with the TLM and in turn bring true excellence to their artistic disciplines such as theater, film, music, and painting.

Even if you are not an artist yourself, you are welcome to join the Guild as a patron to help us live out our mission. More information about becoming a patron can be found on the Guild’s website.

Previous performances and lectures can be found on the Guild’s YouTube page.

Our first ever “Art and Virtue” conference will be held on May 30th at St. Vitus Catholic Church in Los Angeles. The day begins with a Dominican Rite High Mass followed by a series of presentations, live music, and poetry writing. Thomas Mirus from the Catholic Culture podcast will be the main keynote speaker and will discuss the role of virtue in the life of artists. Elena Roche and Professor Anthony Grumbine are the other two speakers as well. Cash prizes will be awarded for the poetry and art competitions.

Sign up for the art competition here.

Sign up for the poetry competition here.

Please keep the Thomistic Artist Guild in your prayers and pray that artists follow Thomas’ principles of beauty in their artwork!

God our Father, we see the beauty in the world you created. Please guide the actions of Catholic artists, that they may cultivate fine art that glorifies You and promotes virtuous living among others. Help them foster works of art containing due proportion, clarity, and integrity so others may be inspired to be with the source of Beauty itself. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. 

(Thomistic Artists Guild Prayer)

Abbé Henri Dutilliet’s “Little Liturgical Catechism” Now in English

On this feast of St. Pius V, I am pleased to share with NLM readers the latest release from Os Justi Press, Abbé Henri Dutilliet’s Little Liturgical Catechism. Inspired by the efforts of Dom Prosper Guéranger, Dutilliet’s remarkable work, first published in French in 1860, offers a comprehensive distillation of the Roman liturgy and the Church’s annual cycle of worship.

This fine but forgotten book was rediscovered by the decadent-novelist-turned-Benedictine-oblate Joris-Karl Huysmans, who saw it back into print in 1896 as a remedy for “ignorance of the Sacred Liturgy.” Nor has the need for education ceased 130 years later, when the traditional rite so beautifully expounded in these pages has returned to so many churches. It is thus fitting to bring Dutilliet’s marvelous aid to light for our times, even as Huysmans did for his.

Expanded with notes that explain unfamiliar terms or point out differences between various editions of the old Roman rite, this first-ever English translation of Dutilliet’s text offers the faithful “the enduring enchantment of the admirable year of the Church” and the understanding that “all in her worship is full of meaning; nothing is left to hazard; no detail, however minute, is without purpose.”

The book is enriched by a substantial appendix that offers a catechism in Ecclesiastical Chant.

Reading the Little Liturgical Catechism is a painless way to acquire much learning in a short time. It would be especially useful to seminarians, MCs, altar servers, musicians, and catechists or religious educators, not to mention bookstores or bookstands.

Augustin Hacquard, bishop of Verdun, described this book as “the fruit of serious research, composed with as much method as precision. We commend this valuable work alike to those who instruct and to those who seek to be instructed.” Frédéric Victor Duval praised it in like manner: “This booklet is very appealing due to its catechetical form. If it were more widely distributed, Catholics would follow the services with greater enthusiasm, and their piety, less ignorant of the liturgy, would be deeper and more lively.”

You may “look inside” the publication at this link, but here are a few sample photos for convenience:

Also of possible interest to readers, here are some other recent publications:

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A New Commission by Artist Henry Wingate: Our Lady of La Vang for Holy Rosary Church, Houston

I was delighted to hear from an old friend, Henry Wingate, who wanted to tell me about his latest project, a painting of Our Lady of La Vang, commissioned by Holy Rosary Church, in Houston, Texas.

I will admit that I didn’t know anything about this apparition and what follows comes from the Wikipedia entry, which I am trusting is accurate.

“Our Lady of La Vang is a Marian apparition associated with the Vietnamese Catholics. The event is traditionally dated to 1798, during a period of severe persecution under the Nguyen Dynasty, when a group of Catholic faithful had fled into the jungle of La Vang in Quảng Trị Province in central Vietnam.

Suffering from illness and living in constant fear of discovery, they gathered to pray the rosary together. According to the account handed down, a woman appeared to them, dressed in the traditional Vietnamese áo dài and holding the Child Jesus, accompanied by angels. She consoled the refugees, instructed them to gather and boil the leaves of local plants as a remedy for their illnesses, and promised that prayers offered there would be answered. 

The apparition has not received formal Vatican approval, and it remains a pious tradition rather than a defined private revelation. Nonetheless, the site became a place of pilgrimage, and a church was eventually built there, destroyed during the Vietnam War, and later rebuilt. Our Lady of La Vang was declared patroness of Vietnam by the Vietnamese bishops, and the feast is kept on 15 August. For Vietnamese Catholics, both in Vietnam and in diaspora communities around the world, the apparition carries particular weight as a sign of consolation given during persecution - a pattern familiar from other Marian appearances in the tradition.”

See more of Henry’s work at henrywingate.com.

The Legend of St Judah Cyriacus

On May 4th, the Martyrology contains a seemingly very ordinary entry about a saint named Cyriacus: “At Jerusalem (the birth into heaven) of St Cyriacus the bishop, who was slain there under Julian the Apostate when he was visiting the holy places.” But behind this there lies a very remarkable hagiographical confusion, which is connected to the previous day’s feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross.

The fifteenth bishop of Jerusalem, and the last man of Jewish descent to hold that office, was a certain Judah, who is mentioned in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History (IV, 5). He is also traditionally said to be a descendant of the Lord’s family, the great-grandson of the Apostle Jude, and was therefore known by the epithet “Kyriakos”, meaning “of the Lord.” Eusebius also says that he lived at the time of the second great rebellion of the Jews against Roman rule (132-35), known after its leader as the Bar-Kochba rebellion. After this was put down, Jews were forbidden to live in the city, and thus he could no longer serve as its bishop; he was therefore replaced by a man named Marcus, and lived out the rest of his days in Galilee.

(Pictured right: St Judah Cyriacus, 1620-25, by the Venetian painter Iacopo Negretti (1548/50-1628), commonly known as Palma il Giovane; in the sacristy of the Jesuit church of the Assumption in Venice. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

But Kyriakos, written as “Cyriacus” in Latin, was not an unusual name among Christians in the ancient world. Twelve others who bear it are listed in the Martyrology, (plus three women named Cyriaca), and three others who are called by a slightly latinized form “Quiriacus.” One of these is a bishop of Ancona, a city on the Adriatic coast of Italy, about 166 miles to the north-northeast of Rome, who is supposed to have lived in the mid-4th century. And somehow, despite the two centuries that separate them in time, he was confused with the Lord’s kinsman who bears his name as an epithet.

Per se, this is not a particularly unusual thing. Much of what the Middle Ages knew of ancient history, especially regarding less prominent figures such as a random bishop of a small port city, was mixed up in a giant chronological muddle. A similar and very famous confusion took place between a missionary named Dionysius sent to Gaul in the mid-3rd century and his Biblical namesake in the latter part of Acts 17. But what makes this case so interesting is how it became tangled up with the story of the finding of the True Cross.

An aerial view of the cathedral of Ancona, dedicated to St Judah Cyriacus, from a postcard made in the 1960s. The local tradition holds that the relics of the Saint were given to the city by the Roman Empress Galla Placidia in the first half of the 5th century. 

After the Bar-Kochba rebellion, the Romans destroyed the ancient city of Jerusalem in a very Roman fashion, by basically choosing a level, shaving off everything higher than that level, and building a giant platform, on top of which they then constructed a new city. This means that the Jerusalem which Our Lord and the Apostles knew, including Calvary and the tomb, was essentially buried under it. After that point, although the Church might well have preserved the memory of the places where the events narrated in the Gospels and Acts happened, the original sites would no longer have been accessible.

In his wonderful novel Helena, a fictionalized account of the holy empress’ life and the finding of the Cross, Evelyn Waugh describes this situation very beautifully. Helena asks the writer Lactantius how the Church knows that the events of Jesus’ life really took place, and he replies:

“We have the accounts written by witnesses. Besides that there is the living memory of the Church. We have knowledge handed down from father to son, invisible places marked by memory – the cave where he was born, the tomb where his body was laid, the grave of Peter. … If you want to visit the holy places you must find the right man. He can tell you, so many paces to the east from such and such a stone, where the shadow falls at sunrise on such and such a day. A few families know these things and they see to it that their children learn the instructions. One day when the Church is free and open there will be no need for such devices.”

St Helena, 1495, by Cima da Conegliano. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

Now the Church historian Sozomen reports (II.1) that the location of Calvary was “disclosed by a Hebrew who dwelt in the East, and who derived his information from some documents which had come to him by paternal inheritance.” This may well represent a memory of the Lord’s family keeping record of the place, such as the aforementioned Judah Kyriakos, although Sozomen himself doubted the truth of the story.

But in the early medieval retelling of the story, the version which carries over into the Golden Legend, when St Helena went to find the Cross, some of the Jewish leaders knew where it was, but refused to tell her, so she threatened to have them all burned alive. They therefore handed over to her one of their number, a man named Judah, whom she had lowered into a well and left for several days, until he agreed to reveal its location. This distasteful episode furnished the antiphons for Lauds, Vespers and the minor Hours of the Finding of the Cross in the pre-Tridentine Roman Breviary; the second, for example, reads, “Then she ordered them all to be burned, but they, being fearful, handed over Judas, alleluia.” (In Clement VIII’s revision of the Tridentine Breviary, these antiphons were all replaced with those of the Exaltation.)

Judah being lowered into the well, part of the cycle of paintings which depict the legend of the Cross by Piero della Francesca (after 1447), in the basilica of St Francis in Arezzo.

The story goes on that this Judah converted to Christianity, eventually became bishop of Jerusalem, and was then martyred under Julian the Apostate. And thus we find the following passage in William Durandus’ entry on the Finding of the Cross.

“The cross was found at the time of Pope Eusebius by the blessed Helena, the mother of Constantine, with the assistance of Judah, who was then a Jew… (of whom) it is read that, having converted to the faith, he afterwards was made bishop of Jerusalem, and having changed his name, was called Quiriacus. It is said that the devil prophesied about him, ‘A Judah handed Christ over to death, but this Judah exalted him when he was dead… but Julian, my servant and friend, will soon be king, and avenge me upon this one.’ This took place when a monk called Julian, apostatizing from the order, by crime required attained the Roman consulship, and thence having become emperor, and a persecutor of the Christians, afflicted him with various punishments and ordered him to be killed. It is also said that a certain soldier by the name of Quiriacus afterwards killed Julian, from whose tomb in Constantinople there comes forth an intolerable stench.” (Rat. Div. Off. VII, 11, 3-5)

The Martyrdom of St Judah Quiriacus, depicted on an altar frontal made in the 12th century in Catalonia, now in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Picturesque as this story may be, no part of it can possibly be true, and it should stand as a caution about the uncritical acceptance of hagiographical legends, even when they come from the pen of a luminary like Durandus. There was indeed a pope called Eusebius, who reigned for 19 months in the years 309-10, well before St Helena went to the Holy Land. It hardly needs saying that the emperor Julian the Apostate was never a monk. His brief reign (Nov. 361 – June 363) falls entirely within the much longer tenure of a bishop of Jerusalem called Cyril (350 ca. – 386), who outlived him by twenty-three years, and is, of course, a Saint and Doctor of the Church. (Cyril is “Kyrillos” in Greek, which might well have been confused with “Kyriakos” in some way.)

There is no solid historical foundation for the tradition that it was a Christian soldier who killed Julian, but in the East, where this tradition is accepted, the soldier’s name is given as Mercurius, not Quiriacus or one of its variants. Julian was originally buried in the city of Tarsus in modern Turkey, but his remains were later moved to Constantinople. The Byzantine chronicler John Zonaras (ca. 1070 – 1140) reports that his sarcophagus stood in a colonnade near the church of the Twelve Apostles. This church was also the imperial mausoleum, and it is impossible to suppose that the emperors would leave near it anything that emitted an intolerable stench.

A porphyry sarcophagus which is believed to have been that of Julian the Apostate, which is now in the Istanbul Archeological Museum in Constantinople. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Apaleutos25, CC BY-SA 4.0.)

Abbot Primate of the Benedictines: “Mass in the Old Rite Can No Longer Be Eliminated”

We are very pleased to note the following from an interview which the Benedictine Abbot Primate, Dom Jeremias Schröder, gave to the website katholische.de, (an official organ of the Catholic Church in Germany), which was published on Saturday. Dom Schröder comes from the archabbey of St Ottilien in Upper Bavaria; he was elected the 11th abbot primate on September 14, 2024. By a happy providence or coincidence, this is also the date that Summorum Pontificum became legally active in 2007, and the birthday of the Holy Father, Pope Leo.

When asked whether the co-existence of the traditional and modern rites created conflict among the Benedictines, Dom Schröder stated, “I don’t see a conflict there. Among us Benedictines, the traditional and modern liturgies coexist harmoniously. In our entire order, we have about ten abbeys that celebrate according to the old rite, most of them in France. These predominantly belong to the Congregation of Solesmes, where, however, the majority of monasteries use the new missal. Starting with the Abbey of Fontgombault, a group of monasteries has emerged that celebrate according to the old rite. They are fully integrated into their congregation. Then there is the abbey of Le Barroux with its daughter houses, which was initially Lefebvrian in orientation. After the illicit episcopal consecrations of 1988, the monastery returned to full communion with Rome and is directly under my authority as Abbot Primate. And then there is the community in Norcia. We all treat each other with respect.”

Then, when asked whether in this regard, the Benedictines “can serve as a model for the entire Church?”, Dom Schröder replied, “In a certain sense, yes, because we already practice this peaceful coexistence. I am very curious to see how Pope Leo will address the issue. After Pope Benedict opened doors here, it will no longer be possible to completely eradicate the old form. We have brothers and sisters who have built their religious lives on this form of prayer and Mass. This has now also gained a place in the Church and should be permitted, at least in some areas.” (In both paragraphs, this is Google’s automatic translation.) 

The text I have bolded above is of course an editorial “my emphasis”, but it is not just my emphasis. It is also the headline for the interview chosen by both katholische.de itself, and by Avvenire, the official news service of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, for summary of it given in Italian on their website. So in both cases, this was the main thing which the editors decided to highlight as the most notable aspect of the interview.  

It bears repeating in this context that both the German and Italian bishops as a whole, while not known for any particular sympathy to the traditional liturgy, have been for the most part blessedly indifferent to the most obvious failure of the previous pontificate. I also note that the abbot primate resides at the abbey of Sant’ Anselmo in Rome, and is chancellor of the its liturgical athenaeum, which has long been one of the centers of opposition to Pope Benedict and Summorum Pontificum. Both sites accompanied their articles with the same photo of the abbot standing in the abbey’s cloister. Perhaps, then, we may take this as another encouraging sign that the Church’s internecine conflict over the traditional liturgy, which was deliberate rekindled almost five years ago, will not last far into its sixth year. And in this regard, let us remember to pray continually for the Holy Father, that the Holy Spirit may inspire to make the right decision, and repeal Traditionis Custodes completely.

And I therefore also make bold to remind our readers of these prayers for the Pope which are traditionally said at services like Benediction, and can of course be said privately any time.

A Legend of St Helena, the Discoverer of the True Cross

The Basilica of the Holy Cross, the main church of the Franciscan Order in Florence, was founded on May 3rd, the feast of the Finding of the Cross, in 1294. Last September, on the Exaltation of the Cross, I posted pictures of the frescoes which the painter Agnolo Gaddi added to the main choir around the year 1385, a cycle that depicts the Legend of the True Cross. The Franciscans were extremely important patrons of the arts in that era, and the basilica is so rich in artworks that it would take several posts to list and describe them all. Here are some pictures from one of the side-chapels, which I am posting today because they are marginally connected to the story of the Finding of the Cross.

The Bardi di Vernio chapel, located in the left transept, is dedicated to Pope St Sylvester I, and was decorated with stories of his life around the year 1335 by Maso di Banco; very little is known about this painter, but he is generally regarded as one of the most talented of Giotto’s followers. (“Maso” was a common Tuscan nickname for “Tommaso.”) This fresco, which is obviously very damaged, depicts the story that the Emperor Constantine, still a pagan and a persecutor of the Church (which he never was in reality) had leprosy, and had been advised by his doctors to bath in the blood of infants to cure it. Many Romans did believe in this kind of sympathetic magic, and while this particular story is certainly a later legend, it is by no means wholly implausible on this point. In this version, which was also read in the Roman Breviary before the Tridentine reform, Constantine was so moved by the weeping of the infants’ mothers that he refusing to commit this terrible crime. One of the great innovations of Giotto’s painting was the use of facial expressions to tell his story, which we see here imitated by Maso in the group of mothers on the right.

The Apostles Peter and Paul appear to Constantine in a dream, and tell him to seek out the Pope, St Sylvester, who is hiding from the persecution on Mt Soracte to the north of Rome, and that the Pope will cure him of his leprosy.

On the left side, Constantine meets Pope Sylvester, who shows him an image of the two Apostles; since he recognizes them as the men who had appeared to him in his dream, he agrees to be baptized, at which his leprosy is indeed cured. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The story that follows (which in the chapel is directly beneath the previous one) is the part of the legend that connects with the Finding of the Cross. Constantine’s mother, the dowager Empress Helena, holds a debate to determine which of the two monotheistic religions, Christianity, represented by the Pope and his cardinals (on the left), or Judaism, represented by a group of rabbis (on the right), is true. When the rabbis have been bested by the Pope at every point in the debate (which is recounted at wearisome length in The Golden Legend), one of them decides to prove the truth of Judaism by whispering what he claims to be the Divine Name into the ear of a ferocious bull, which immediately dies. However, Sylvester then whispers into its ear “O name of cursing and death, go out by the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose name I say to thee: o bull, arise, and return in all mildness to thy flock.” The bull immediately comes back to life and walks away. Helena and all those present, including the rabbis, become Christians; she then goes on her great expedition to the Holy Land, where she discovers the site of Mt Calvary and the relics of the True Cross. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Ss Athanasius of Alexandria and Gregory of Nazianzus

Today is the feast of St Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria and Doctor of the Church, the foremost champion of the true Faith during the great crisis caused by the heretic Arius in the 4th century. May 2nd is universally recognized to be the day of his death; there is a particular fittingness to celebrating him on this date, one week after the feast of St Mark the Evangelist, the founder of the See of Alexandria, as a sign of continuity between the Gospel and Nicene orthodoxy. The Roman Rite shares this arrangement with the Coptic calendar and the Byzantine, although in the latter, today is noted as the feast of the translation of Athanasius’ relics; his principal feast, which he shares with another Patriarch of Alexandria and Doctor, St Cyril, is on January 18th. Likewise, the western Church keeps the feast of St Gregory of Nazianzus on May 9th, a week after Athanasius, as a sign that he inherited his mantle as the greatest theological writer in the controversies over the Trinity and Incarnation. His feast is also kept one week after Athanasius’ in the Byzantine Rite, on January 25th.

Ss Athanasius and Cyril, from the Menologion of Basil II, 985 AD: public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

St Athanasius was always known to the western Church from his Life of St Anthony, which was translated into Latin close to the time of death in 373; St Augustine mentions it in the Confessions. However, many of his most important theological works were not known to the West until the 15th century; in the writings of St Thomas Aquinas, for example, St John Chrysostom is mentioned about 20 times more often. His feast does occur in western liturgical books of the pre-Tridentine period, but almost exclusively in France and Spain, and almost never before the later decades of the 15th century; it does not appear to have been kept at all in Rome.

Much the same holds true for St Gregory of Nazianzus. He was known to the West from the mentions of him in the writings of his student, St Jerome, e.g. in the well-known treatise On Virginity against Jovinian, and the book On Illustrious Men, in which he calls him “a most eloquent man.” But again, very little of his writing was translated into Latin, and he is mentioned by St Thomas even less often than St Athanasius. Before the Tridentine reform, his feast was kept almost nowhere outside Spain, and even there, only from the very beginning of the 16th century.

In 1568, when Pope St Pius V, fulfilling a request of the Council of Trent, published a revision of the Roman Breviary, both Saints were included not just as bishops and confessors, but also as Doctors of the Church, and at the highest of three grades of feasts. The same titles and rank were also given to Ss Basil the Great and John Chrysostom; among these four, only Chrysostom had been widely celebrated with a feast thitherto. Up to that point, the title “Doctor”, and the use of the liturgical texts associated with it, had been formally granted to only four Saints whose writings were always particularly influential in the West, Ss Gregory the Great, Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome.

In the Counter-Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church was greatly concerned to assert that its traditional doctrines were those held “always, everywhere and by all”, and not medieval corruptions, as the early Protestants often claimed. The pairing of four Eastern Doctors with the traditional four Western Doctors therefore asserted the universality of those teachings which were held by Rome and defended by the Council of Trent, and also held by the Eastern churches. The inclusion of St Thomas Aquinas among them then asserted the continuity in teaching between the patristic and medieval Church, also frequently denied by the Protestants. Three of these new Eastern Doctors also have special connections to Rome and the papacy. During the second of his five exiles, St Athanasius was a guest of Pope St Julius I, who defended him against the Arian heretics; relics of Ss John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus were saved from the iconoclasts in the 8th century and brought to Rome, later to be placed in St Peter’s Basilica.

The Gregorian Chapel in St Peter’s Basilica, built by Pope Gregory XIII to house the relics of his namesake of Nazianzus, which he translated here from the Roman church of Santa Maria in Campo Marzo in 1580.

Furthermore, these same Fathers are witnesses not just to Catholic teachings that the early Protestants rejected, but to others like the Trinity and Incarnation, which they not only accepted, but considered necessary for salvation. This was of course one of the strongest points in the Catholic Church’s favor during the controversies of the 16th century: if one accepts Athanasius, for example, as a witness to the doctrine of the Trinity, on what grounds does one reject him when he says, “So long as the prayers of supplication and entreaties have not been made, there is only bread and wine. But after the great and wonderful prayers have been completed, then the bread is become the Body, and the wine the Blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ”? If one accepts Basil’s defense of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, on what grounds does one reject his teaching that “It is necessary to confess our sins to those whom the dispensation of God’s mysteries is entrusted”? And more broadly, once the Fathers have been admitted as witnesses to the Christian Faith at all, one has in effect admitted a tradition, by which the teachings of some Christians in antiquity are recognized to be true, and those of others false, a further undermining of the original logical impossibility known as sola Scriptura.

There is an aspect of St Gregory of Nazianus’ career in particular which is less well known than his role as a theologian, and which should perhaps be better known today.

For most of the half century after the death of Constantine in 337, the Roman Emperors were supporters of Arianism, rather than of the orthodox faith. It should therefore not surprise anyone that the see of the imperial capital was dominated for most of that period by Arian bishops. However, with the death in 378 of the Emperor Valens, an enthusiastic persecutor of the orthodox, and the accession of Theodosius I, the tide began to turn strongly against the Arians. St Gregory, having retired some years earlier from a bishopric which he had been practically forced into, was then living a quiet and contemplative life in a monastery near Seleucia on the southern coast of Asia Minor, over 400 miles away from the capital. A number of Catholic bishops, anxious to reestablish the true faith in Constantinople, suggested that he come to the city, not as its bishop, but as a missionary; as with his earlier bishopric, he was prevailed upon to take up this new role only with the greatest reluctance.

The consecration of St Gregory of Nazianzus as a bishop, depicted in a manuscript of his writings copied out in Constantinople between 879 and 883. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Grec 510, f. 452r)

Gregory was accepted by almost none of the city’s clergy, and had access to none of its many churches; as Butler’s Lives of the Saints puts it, he was a bishop in Constantinople, but not the bishop of Constantinople. He therefore opened a small chapel attached to the house of a relative, which he called “Anastasis – the Resurrection”, a sign that it would become the place from which the true faith would rise again. His preaching, and especially the series of sermons on the Trinity, was in fact incredibly effective; more and more people were attracted by his eloquence, and his flock began to grow.

This brought with it many difficulties, of course, including persecution from the Arians and other heretics, which more than once came to physical violence, as well as calumnies and insults. At the Easter vigil during his first year in the city, the Arians broke into his church; Gregory himself was wounded, and another bishop present was killed. But among his many disciples, he would soon come to number not only St Jerome, but also Evagrius of Pontus, who would himself become one of the most influential theologians of the era.

The following year, Theodosius, newly baptized by an orthodox bishop, issued the Edict of Thessalonica, recognizing as the true faith “that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria.” Towards the end of the year, on arriving in Constantinople, he expelled the Arian bishop for refusing to embrace the Nicene confession of faith, and set Gregory in his place. It may seem that this victory was short-lived; within a few months, in the midst of every sort of intrigue and new acts of violence, Gregory obtained the emperor’s permission to resign his see and return to Nazianzus. But in point of fact, it did not matter. At the very moment when it seemed that heresy had triumphed in one of the most important and influential sees of Christendom, the true faith was reborn from a single place, and largely through the work of single man. Nor was this the first or last time such an event happened in the life of the Church. Let it therefore be an object lesson to us, never to despair over the sorry condition in which the Church finds itself in a particular time and place, including our own.