Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: How many churches are there in Rome?
There are more than 900 churches in Rome,[1] including some notable Roman Catholic Marian churches. Most, but not all, of these are Roman Catholic.
Over its two thousand-year history, the Church of Italy grew in size and influence producing and harboring (sometimes before martyrdom) some of the greatest leaders and movers of Catholic Christianity including Priscilla and Aquila; Ignatius of Antioch, martyred in Rome; Polycarp, martyred in Rome and a disciple of John the Evangelist; Agnes, Roman martyr; Lawrence, martyr; Justin Martyr, teacher and martyr; Hippolytus, priest and martyr; Cecilia, Roman martyr; Ambrose of Milan, bishop and Doctor of the Church; Jerome, theologian and Doctor of the Church; Benedict of Nursia, founder of the Benedictine order and of Western monasticism; Leo the Great, bishop of Rome and Doctor of the Church; Gregory the Great, bishop of Rome and Doctor of the Church; Augustine of Canterbury, Roman monk, Benedictine missionary to England, later English bishop; Urban II, pope or Bishop of Rome who called for the First Crusade; Anselm of Canterbury, Italian-born philosopher, Doctor of the Church and later English bishop; Francis of Assisi, mystic and founder of the Franciscans; Bonaventure of Bagnorea, Franciscan theologian and Doctor of the Church; Thomas Aquinas, Dominican theologian, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church; Dante, poet; Catherine of Siena, mystic, reformer, and Doctor of the Church; Monteverdi, composer; Robert Bellarmine of Tuscany, Jesuit theologian and Doctor of the Church; Antonio Vivaldi, priest and composer; Leo XIII, bishop of Rome and social reformer; Pius XII, bishop of Rome; John XXIII, bishop of Rome and initiator of Second Vatican Council, among many others. One could add to this list the founders of various contemporary lay ecclesial movements, notably Luigi Giussani, founder of Communion And Liberation, and Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement. Also, Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant'Egidio, now one of the great faith based organizations in the world.
The "Il Messaggero" of Rome reported of "heinous massacres" of the Albanians in the Vilayet of Kosovo. The French ""L'Humanité"" reported of plundering, massacres and destruction. Freundlich called for the Great Powers help in order to protect the "defenseless population against an army with a state" referring to how the Albanians did not resist the invading Serb forces but were, despite their cooperation, massacred. He mentions how Serb soldiers, in the village of Kumanovo, set fire to houses, and smoked the inhabitants out and then shooting them. The reports include descriptions of how Catholic Albanians and priests were murdered by the Serb armies and how the Serbian Orthodox Church violently converted Albanian Catholics to Orthodoxism. In Albania, many Catholic churches were robbed, including Orthodox ones. Manhunts were carried out by Serb officers who killed many Albanians, and houses and whole villages were burned down with the inhabitants being burned alive or shot down as they fled. Much of the food was stolen by the Serb soldiers from the Albanian villagers, leading to starvation and disease.
As the home of the Pope and the Catholic curia, as well as the locus of many sites and relics of veneration related to apostles, saints and Christian martyrs, Rome had long been a destination for pilgrims. The Via Francigena was an ancient pilgrim route between England and Rome. It was customary to end the pilgrimage with a visit to the tombs of Sts Peter and Paul. Periodically, some were moved to travel to Rome for the spiritual benefits accrued during a Jubilee. These indulgences sometimes required a visit to a specific church or churches. Pilgrims need not visit each church.
As a church architect, Vaccarini introduced into Sicily the church plans of the Renaissance which had passed Sicily by. However, many of his churches are based on the designs of churches he had seen in Rome. The church of S. Agata in Catania, for instance, is based on Sant'Agnese in Agone (Rome).
According to Christian tradition, the Christian Church was founded by Jesus. In the Gospel according to Matthew, the resurrected Jesus gathered his Twelve Apostles together, issued the Great Commission, and selected Simon Peter as their leader, proclaiming "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven". Many modern scholars, including some Catholic ones, flatly deny that Jesus ever even intended to found a Church, much less that he did so. Even those scholars who agree that Jesus founded some kind of Church are divided on whether he founded it on Simon Peter or gave him any sort of primacy. Even those scholars who accept that Peter held some sort of primacy among the apostles are divided on the issue of whether Jesus intended that primacy to be continued by others after Peter's death (apostolic succession). Even those scholars who accept that Jesus intended a continuing Petrine primacy are divided on whether this primacy was uniquely devolved upon the Church of Rome; some, for example, following the lead of Cyprian of Carthage, insist that the Petrine primacy is possessed by every bishop throughout the world who stands in legitimate apostolic succession, whether in communion with Rome or not. Even those scholars who accept that a unique Petrine primacy attached to the See of Rome are divided on exactly how and why that primacy became attached to Rome, by what means or succession it was passed down within the See of Rome, whether Rome itself remained true to that primacy, and exactly what authority the primacy legitimately exercises in the world today.
The bishops of the most important sees sought acceptance from Rome. Some early church fathers attest to the fact that the Church of Rome - in effect its diocese - was the central point of authority. They attest to the Church's reliance on Rome for advice, for mediation of disputes, and for guidance on doctrinal issues. They note, as Ignatius of Antioch (ca 1st century) does, that Rome "holds the presidency" among the other churches, and that, as Irenaeus (ca 2nd century) explains, "because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree" with Rome. They are also clear on the fact that it is full communion with Rome and the bishop of Rome that causes one to be in communion with the Catholic Church. This displays a recognition that, as Cyprian of Carthage (3rd century) puts it, Rome is "the principal church, in which sacerdotal unity has its source." Most of these references were to the entire Church of Rome as such, not necessarily to the Bishop of Rome in his person, but after the role of the pope emerged, the church and its bishop became interpreted in a synonymous way.
The modern Russian Catholic Church owes much to the inspiration of poet and philosopher Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov (1853–1900), who urged, following Dante, that, just as the world needed the Tsar as a universal monarch, the Church needed the Pope of Rome as a universal ecclesiastical hierarch. Following Solovyov's teachings a Russian Orthodox priest, Nicholas Tolstoy, entered into full communion with the See of Rome under the Melkite Greek-Catholic, Byzantine Rite Patriarchate of Antioch. Solovyov received sacramental Extreme Unction from Father Tolstoy believing that in doing so he remained also a faithful member of the Russian Orthodox Church. Orthodox authorities refer to Tolstoy as an apostate and “ex-priest,” but tend to imply that Solovyov still died an Orthodox Christian. Nevertheless, Solovyov never retracted his sentiments in favor of union with the Catholic Church and the See of Rome, and to this day, many Russian Catholics refer to themselves as members of the 'Russian "Orthodox" Church in communion with Rome'.
In the Ravenna Document, issued in 2007, representatives of the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church jointly stated that both East and West accept the fact of the Bishop of Rome's primacy at the universal level, but that differences of understanding exist about how the primacy is to be exercised and about its scriptural and theological foundations.
The Catholic dogma of the primacy of the bishop of Rome is codified in both codes of canon law of the Catholic Church – the Latin Church's 1983 "Code of Canon Law" (1983 CIC) and the Eastern Catholic Churches' 1990 "Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches" (CCEO). The Second Vatican Council's 1964 dogmatic constitution "Lumen gentium" (LG) declared that the "pope's power of primacy" is by "virtue of his office, that is as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church," and is "full, supreme and universal power over the Church" which he "is always free to exercise." The primacy of the bishop of Rome, according to John Hardon in "Catholic Dictionary", is "primacy of jurisdiction, which means the possession of full and supreme teaching, legislative, and sacerdotal powers in the Catholic Church"; it is authority "not only in faith and morals but Church discipline and in the government of the Church."
The evolution of earlier tradition established both Peter and Paul as the forefathers of the bishops of Rome, from whom they received their position as chief shepherd (Peter) and supreme authority on doctrine (Paul). To establish her primacy among the churches of the Western half of the empire, the bishops of Rome relied on a letter written in 416 by Innocent I to the Bishop of Gubbio, to show how subordination to Rome had been established. Since Peter was the only apostle (no mention of Paul) to have worked in the West, thus the only persons to have established churches in Italy, Spain, Gaul, Sicily, Africa, and the Western islands were bishops appointed by Peter or his successors. This being the case then, all congregations had to abide by the regulations set in Rome.
In 1949, the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War led to the expulsion of all foreign missionaries. The new government also created the Patriotic Church and appointed its bishops. These appointments were initially rejected by Rome, before many of them were accepted. In the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communists closed all religious establishments. When Chinese churches eventually reopened, they remained under the control of the Patriotic Church. Many Catholic pastors and priests continued to be sent to prison for refusing to renounce allegiance to Rome.
The shrine was for many centuries the national church of the Sardinians and the Corsicans resident in Rome. Starting with the 16th century, the Corsicans immigrated in the city settled in the Tiber Island and in that part of Trastevere liying between the Port of Ripa Grande and the church. In the interior are buried several commanders of the "Guardia corsa", a militia analogue to the Swiss guard, which was active in Rome between the 15th and the 17th century.
The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus personally appointed Peter as leader of the Church, and the Catholic Church's dogmatic constitution "Lumen gentium" makes a clear distinction between apostles and bishops, presenting the latter as the successors of the former, with the pope as successor of Peter, in that he is head of the bishops as Peter was head of the apostles. Some historians argue against the notion that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, noting that the episcopal see in Rome can be traced back no earlier than the 3rd century. The writings of the Church Father Irenaeus who wrote around AD 180 reflect a belief that Peter "founded and organized" the Church at Rome. Moreover, Irenaeus was not the first to write of Peter's presence in the early Roman Church. Clement of Rome wrote in a letter to the Corinthians, "c." 96, about the persecution of Christians in Rome as the "struggles in our time" and presented to the Corinthians its heroes, "first, the greatest and most just columns", the "good apostles" Peter and Paul. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote shortly after Clement and in his letter from the city of Smyrna to the Romans he said he would not command them as Peter and Paul did. Given this and other evidence, such as Emperor Constantine's erection of the "Old St. Peter's Basilica" on the location of St. Peter's tomb, as held and given to him by Rome's Christian community, many scholars agree that Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero, although some scholars argue that he may have been martyred in Palestine.
The common name of the church, "Eastern Orthodox Church", is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use. From ancient times through the first millennium, Greek was the most prevalent shared language in the demographic regions where the Byzantine Empire flourished, and Greek, being the language in which the New Testament was written, was the primary liturgical language of the church. For this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as "Greek" (in contrast to the "Roman" or "Latin" church, which used a Latin translation of the Bible), even before the Great Schism of 1054. After 1054, "Greek Orthodox" or "Greek Catholic" marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople, much as "Catholic" did for communion with Rome. This identification with Greek, however, became increasingly confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. In addition, struggles between Rome and Constantinople to control parts of Southeastern Europe resulted in the conversion of some churches to Rome, which then also used "Greek Catholic" to indicate their continued use of the Byzantine rites. Today, many of those same churches remain, while a very large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin, and do not use Greek as the language of worship. "Eastern", then, indicates the geographical element in the Church's origin and development, while "Orthodox" indicates the faith, as well as communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. There are additional Christian churches in the east that are in communion with neither Rome nor Constantinople, who tend to be distinguished by the category named "Oriental Orthodox". While the church continues officially to call itself "Catholic", for reasons of universality, the common title of "Eastern Orthodox Church" avoids casual confusion with the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1861, Victor Emmanuel II declared the Kingdom of Italy, making Cavour officially Prime Minister of Italy. Cavour had many difficult issues to consider, including how to create a national military, which legal institutions should be retained in what locations, and especially the future of Rome. Most Italians thought Rome must be capital of a united Italy, but this conflicted with the temporal power of the Pope and also the independence of the Church. Cavour believed that Rome should remain the seat of "a free church in a free state", which would maintain its independence but give up temporal power. Still Austrian Venetia was also a problem. Cavour recognized that Venice must be an integral part of Italy but refused to take a stance on how to achieve it, saying "Will the deliverance of Venice come by arms or diplomacy? I do not know. It is the secret of Providence." A motion approving of his foreign policy passed by a huge majority, basically only opposed by left-wing and right-wing extremist groups.
In his encyclical, Pope Pius XII explains that many trials and persecutions took place in the last three hundred and fifty years, but that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church always came out strong. He reminds of the many favours and assistances the Church received from Rome and how his papal predecessors always supported the independent culture and rite of the Oriental Church. In the last part of the encyclical, he addresses the grievances facing the Ukrainians in 1945. Aware of the persecution of the faithful and expects even more:While most Oriental Christians belong to an Orthodox Church, some like the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church Church, are united with Rome, which allowed them to keep their own Oriental liturgy and Church laws. The Ruthenian Catholic Church is located in Ukraine. Ruthenian Catholics call themselves Rusyns. They are closely related to the Ukrainians and speak a dialect of the same language. The traditional Rusyn homeland extends into northeast Slovakia and the Lemko region of southeast Poland. Until 1922, the area was largely a part of Austria-Hungary. After becoming Polish, which follows the Latin Rite, Polonisation and significant problems for all Orthodox, including united Christians developed. Some Ruthenians resisting Polonisation, felt deserted by the Vatican and returned to the Orthodox Church. After World War II, in 1945, Polish and Slovakian areas became part of the Soviet Union, which exerted pressure on the Ruthenians and other Ukrainians united with Rome, to sever relations and join the Orthodox Church, headed the Patriarch of Moscow.
It was claimed that (1) the union with Rome was a Polish conspiracy to dominate and wipe out the culture of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church: (2) United orthodox faithful and priests had to suffer under Polish bishops of the Latin Rite and Polonisation. (3) But now they are liberated by the glorious Soviet Army under the leadership of the incomparable Marshal Joseph Stalin and therefore, continued ties to Rome are no longer necessary. The new Patriarch Alexius I called on Catholics for a separation from Rome:Pope Pius XII answered: "Who does not know, that Patriarch Alexius I recently elected by the dissident bishops of Russia, openly exalts and preaches defection from the Catholic Church in a letter lately addressed to the Ruthenian Church, a letter, which contributes not a little to the persecution?" He mentions the United Nations proclamation that religious persecution will never happen again. "This had given us hope that peace and true liberty would be granted everywhere to the Catholic Church, the more so since the Church has always taught, and teaches, that obedience to the ordinances of the lawfully established civil power, within the sphere and bounds of its authority, is a duty of conscience. But, unfortunately, the events we have mentioned have grievously and bitterly weakened, have almost destroyed, our hope and confidence so far as the lands of the Ruthenians are concerned.
In the account of the Confession of Peter found in the Gospel of Matthew, Christ designates Peter as the "rock" upon which Christ's church will be built. The Catholic Church considers the Bishop of Rome, the pope, to be the successor to Saint Peter. Some scholars state Peter was the first Bishop of Rome. Others say that the institution of the papacy is not dependent on the idea that Peter was Bishop of Rome or even on his ever having been in Rome. Many scholars hold that a church structure of plural presbyters/bishops persisted in Rome until the mid-2nd century, when the structure of a single bishop and plural presbyters was adopted, and that later writers retrospectively applied the term "bishop of Rome" to the most prominent members of the clergy in the earlier period and also to Peter himself. On this basis, Oscar Cullmann, Henry Chadwick, and Bart D. Ehrman question whether there was a formal link between Peter and the modern papacy. Raymond E. Brown also says that it is anachronistic to speak of Peter in terms of local bishop of Rome, but that Christians of that period would have looked on Peter as having "roles that would contribute in an essential way to the development of the role of the papacy in the subsequent church". These roles, Brown says, "contributed enormously to seeing the bishop of Rome, the bishop of the city where Peter died, and where Paul witnessed to the truth of Christ, as the successor of Peter in care for the church universal".
The pope resides in the Vatican City, enclaved in Rome. Having been a major center for Christian pilgrimage since the Roman Empire, Rome is commonly regarded as the "home" of the Catholic Church, since it is where Saint Peter settled, ministered, served as bishop, and died. His relics are located in Rome along with Saint Paul's, among many other saints of Early Christianity.
Following the Sack of Rome by invading European Goths, Rome became increasingly isolated from the churches in the eastern and southern Mediterranean. This was a situation which suited and pleased many of the patriarchs and bishops of those churches.
Rome has an often overlooked, yet rich and diverse Romanesque and Gothic heritage. Many of the first Christian churches in the world were constructed in Rome, and Byzantine churches were mainly based on the Roman basilica. They were often oblong or geometric, long, with three naves and full of rich golden mosaics. Later Romanesque churches in Rome were more round, using the Roman arch. There are few Gothic churches in Rome. Examples of buildings from this period includes the Torre delle Milizie, the Torre dei Conti, and the churches of Santa Maria Maggiore, San Paolo Fuori le Mura (the later part being largely rebuilt in the 19th century), Santa Maria in Trastevere, Santi Quattro Coronati, Santa Prassede, and Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Elaborate tabernacles were popular especially in the 13th century, and basilicas were often full of rich mosaics. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Cosmati family was famous for their mosacis and elegant decoration. They created beautiful marble floors with mosaics, often with inlays of green and red porphyry. Their designs in Rome became so popular that they were known as "cosmatesque".
The evolution of earlier tradition established both Peter and Paul as the forefathers of the bishops of Rome, from whom they received their position as chief shepherd (Peter) and supreme authority on doctrine (Paul). To establish her primacy among the churches of the Western half of the empire, the bishops of Rome relied on a letter written in 416 by Innocent I to the Bishop of Gubbio, to show how subordination to Rome had been established. Since Peter was the only apostle (no mention of Paul) to have worked in the West, thus the only persons to have established churches in Italy, Spain, Gaul, Sicily, Africa, and the Western islands were bishops appointed by Peter or his successors. This being the case then, all congregations had to abide by the regulations set in Rome).
In the year 1052, the Bishop of Rome, claiming authority over all West, and adding the "Filioque" in the Nicene Creed, leading many (generally Orthodox) churches to leave communion with Rome. In some places in the West, such as in Southern Italy, many bishops resisted.
In 1861, Victor Emmanuel II declared the Kingdom of Italy, making Cavour officially Prime Minister of Italy. Cavour had many difficult issues to consider, including how to create a national military, which legal institutions should be retained in what locations, and especially the future of Rome. Most Italians thought Rome must be capital of a united Italy, but this conflicted with the temporal power of the Pope and also the independence of the Church. Cavour believed that Rome should remain the seat of "a free church in a free state", which would maintain its independence but give up temporal power. Still Austrian Venetia was also a problem. Cavour recognized that Venice must be an integral part of Italy but refused to take a stance on how to achieve it, saying "Will the deliverance of Venice come by arms or diplomacy? I do not know. It is the secret of Providence." A motion approving of his foreign policy passed by a huge majority, basically only opposed by left-wing and right-wing extremist groups.
In the great compilations of ecclesiastical law that arose in the East since the 3rd century, the Church Orders many canons were attributed to Hippolytus, for example in the Canons of Hippolytus or the Constitutions through Hippolytus. How much of this material is genuinely his, how much of it worked over, and how much of it wrongly attributed to him, can no longer be determined beyond dispute, however a great deal was incorporated into the "Fetha Negest", which once served as the constitutional basis of law in Ethiopia — where he is still remembered as Abulides. During the early 20th century the work known as "The Egyptian Church Order" was identified as the Apostolic Tradition and attributed to Hippolytus; presently this attribution is hotly contested.
The first pastor at Lambert Road Baptist Church, Richard Miller, when he arrived in Durban, was quoted as saying, "What faith and hope, how much of love and labour, how many prayers, how many tears, have gone to building the fabric that has now arisen in the Lambert Road Baptist Church, is known to God."