Sunday, December 13, 2009

More Churches & The Holy Stairs

St. John Lateran

On Saturday we headed out to see the last things on our list for Rome. We started at St. John Lateran the Pope's home church. This was one of the most beautiful churches we saw. Inside it had statues of all the apostles and my favorite statue of Mary and Jesus. Across the street was the Santa Scala or Holy Staircase. These are believed to be the stairs Jesus walked up before his trial in front of Pontius Pilot. The staircase was among one of the many relics St. Helen brought to Rome in c.326 AD. Now covered in walnut wood you may only climb the staircase on your knees.

We went to another church that contained relics from the Crucifixtion; one of the nails, thorns, and wood from the cross. They were preserved in such a way that we really couldn't see them well. The most unique church we went to was the bone church. Underneath the church there was a long hallway that was decorated with the bones and skeletons of the church's monks. It was pretty creepy to see real human bones used for decoration.

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