Saints Cyril and Methodius

Today is the feast in the Novus Ordo of SS Cyril and Methodius, who are now, with St Benedict, co-patrons of Europe. There is an online account of the Apostles of the Slavs here.

SS Cyril and Methodius arrive in Rome bearing the relics of St Clement*

Fresco in San Clemente Rome of the period 1080-1100

Image:Wikipedia

As the online life recounts in 867 the two brothers were invited from Moravia by Pope Nicholas I, the Great, to Rome. They travelled there with supporters and bearing the relics of St Clement. By the time they arrived in 868 Pope Nicholas had died and it was Pope Adrian II who welcomed them, and who decreed quasi-papal honours for Cyril's funeral in 869.

I have chosen this picture because although it is later in date - late eleventh century - it does give an idea of the ceremonial surrounding the Papacy in that period, and very probably that of SS Cyril and Methodius. The details of the vestments are also interesting. The exuberant thurifers are rather good - and haven't we all seen such behaviour in our time?

St Cyril is buried in the church, and there is more about this remarkable building at  Basilica San Clemente official website and at the account in Basilica of San Clemente.

* The picture source describes it thus, but it occurs to me that it might equally depict St Cyril's funeral in 869 when he was accorded Papal honours - see today's Divine Office lection in the Office of Readings - and that a nimbused St Methodius is standing by the Pope as his brother's corpse - rather than bones of the first century St Clement - is carried to its funeral or burial. I have not got time at the momet to check further, but it might make for abetter reading of the iconography.

St Clement and his churches

St Clement, whose feast day falls today, was the third successor of St Peter, and is accorded a place in the Roman Canon. There is an online article about him and his cultus here.

St Peter and St Clement
Mosaic circa 1200 San Clemente Rome
Image:www.aug.edu

The New Liturgical Movement has an article about him, with links to a series of their posts about the remarkable, even amongst Roman churches, San Clemente in Rome, which can be read at St. Clement and San Clemente. There is a page about the iconography of the apse here.

San Clemente has been in the care of the Irish Dominicans since 1667, and there is a general introductory article about the basilica here.

St Clement
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, c.1730-35
The National Gallery

Image:Wikipedia

St Clement proved to be a very popular patron for churches accross Europe. In the tenth century he was popular with the Danes, and in England churches dedicated to him are often found in areas of Danish settlement - St Clement Danes in The Strand in London is no misnomer. On this topic the book to look at is Barbara E. Crawford's The Churches dedicated to St. Clement in Medieval England. A Hagio-geography of the Seafarer’s Saint in 11th century North Europe. Scripta Ecclesiastica Tome 1, Serie Supplementaire a Scrinium. Revue de Patrologie, d’Hagiographie Critique et d’Histoire Ecclesiastique(St. Petersburg, 2008).

In my home town of Pontefract the chapel in the castle was dedicated to him. Excavations in the 1980s suggested that the chapel was situated on the highest natural part of the promentory on which the castle is built, although later concealed by the embanking of the Norman defences, and that the original chapel predated the castle. That would tie in with Danish influence in the area before the Conquest of 1066. The chapel was a collegiate foundation, and one of its deans was to be the benefactor who gave the house called the Oriel, and hence the name, to my Oxford college. Moreover the park attached to the castle lay within the extra-parochial jurisdiction of the chapel, and my home in Pontefract lay within its bounds. So I feel I have a particular connection with St Clement.