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Antonio Ferrua (31 March 1901 - 25 May 2003) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest, archaeologist and epigraphist. [1]
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2025) |
Antonio Ferrua (31 March 1901 - 25 May 2003) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest, archaeologist and epigraphist. [1]
Born in Trinità, he was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1930 and three years later graduated from the University of Turin in classical letters with a thesis on epigrams of Pope Damasus I. He graduated against from the Pontifical Institute for Christian Archaeology in Christian epigraphy in 1937 and was summoned to work on Saint Peter's tomb in the Vatican necropolis by Pope Pius XII in 1940 - the resulting dispute with Margherita Guarducci over the rediscovery of Saint Peter's bones lasted the rest of Ferrua's life. [2]
He was professor and rector of the Pontifical Institute for Christian Archaeology, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology and librarian of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, as well as a member of the Pontifical Roman Academy of Archaeology, the Roman Society of National History, the National Institute of Roman Studies, the German Archaeological Institute and other scholarly societies. He wrote for La Civiltà Cattolica and produced a large number of his own publications, such as the nine-volume “Inscriptiones christianae Urbis Romae septimo saeculo antiquiores” (Christian inscriptions of the City of Rome dating back seven centuries). He died in Rome.
Pope Damasus I, also known as Damasus of Rome, was the bishop of Rome from October 366 to his death in 384. It is claimed that he presided over the Council of Rome of 382 that determined the canon or official list of sacred scripture.
The Catacombs of Rome are ancient catacombs, underground burial places in and around Rome, of which there are at least forty, some rediscovered since 1578, others even as late as the 1950s.
The Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran is the Catholic cathedral of the Diocese of Rome in the city of Rome, and serves as the seat of the bishop of Rome, the pope. The only "archbasilica" in the world, it lies outside of Vatican City proper, which is located approximately four kilometres northwest. Nevertheless, as properties of the Holy See, the archbasilica and its adjoining edifices enjoy an extraterritorial status from Italy, pursuant to the terms of the Lateran Treaty of 1929. Dedicated to the Christ, in honor of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, the place name, Laterano (Lateran) comes from an ancient Roman family (gens), whose palace (domus) grounds occupied the site; the adjacent Lateran Palace was the primary residence of the pope until the Middle Ages.
Pontifical Gregorian University, is a private pontifical university in Rome, Italy.
A pontifical university or athenaeum is an ecclesiastical university established or approved directly by the Holy See, composed of three main ecclesiastical faculties and at least one other faculty. These academic institutes deal specifically with Christian revelation and related disciplines, and the Church's mission of spreading the Gospel, as proclaimed in the apostolic constitution Sapientiachristiana. As of 2018, they are governed by the apostolic constitution Veritatis gaudium issued by Pope Francis on 8 December 2017.
Saint Peter's tomb is a site under St. Peter's Basilica that includes several graves and a structure said by Vatican authorities to have been built to memorialize the location of Saint Peter's grave. St. Peter's tomb is alleged near the west end of a complex of mausoleums, the Vatican Necropolis, that date between about AD 130 and AD 300. The complex was partially torn down and filled with earth to provide a foundation for the building of the first St. Peter's Basilica during the reign of Constantine I in about AD 330. Though many bones have been found at the site of the 2nd-century shrine, as the result of two campaigns of archaeological excavation, Pope Pius XII stated in December 1950 that none could be confirmed to be Saint Peter's with absolute certainty. Following the discovery of bones that had been transferred from a second tomb under the monument, on June 26, 1968, Pope Paul VI said that the relics of Saint Peter had been identified in a manner considered convincing. Circumstantial evidence was provided to support the claim.
The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter is a traditionalist Catholic society of apostolic life for priests and seminarians. It is in communion with the Holy See. It was founded in 1988 by 12 former members of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) who left following the Écône consecrations, which resulted in the SSPX bishops being excommunicated by the Holy See.
Ecclesia Dei is the document Pope John Paul II issued on 2 July 1988 in reaction to the Ecône consecrations, in which four priests of the Society of Saint Pius X were ordained as bishops despite an express prohibition by the Holy See. The consecrating bishop and the four priests consecrated were excommunicated. John Paul called for unity and established the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei to foster a dialogue with those associated with the consecrations who hoped to maintain both loyalty to the papacy and their attachment to traditional liturgical forms.
The Basilica of St. Stephen in the Round on the Caelian Hill is an ancient basilica and titular church in Rome, Italy. Commonly named Santo Stefano Rotondo, the church is Hungary's "national church" in Rome, dedicated to both Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and Stephen I, the canonized first king of Hungary. The minor basilica is also the rectory church of the Pontifical Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum.
Michael Louis Fitzgerald is a British cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and an expert on Christian–Muslim relations. He has had the rank of archbishop since 2002. At his retirement in 2012, he was the apostolic nuncio to Egypt and delegate to the Arab League. He headed the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue from 2002 to 2006. Pope Francis raised him to the rank of cardinal on 5 October 2019.
Santi Sergio e Bacco is a Catholic church of the Byzantine Rite located on Piazza Madonna dei Monti in the rione of Monti in Rome, Italy. Sergius and Bacchus are said to have been early fourth-century Roman military officers and Christian martyrs buried in Syria. In the 9th century the church was known as Sergius and Bacchus in Callinico, in the Middle Ages as Sergius and Bacchus de Suburra, and from the 18th century forward has been known also as the church of Madonna del Pascolo. Since 1970 it has been a national church of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Rome and was known officially as the "Parish of Ukrainian Catholics of Madonna del Pascolo and Saints Sergius and Bacchus." Since 2019 the church serves as a cathedral for the Ukrainian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Italy.
The Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology is an official board of the Vatican founded in 1852 by Pope Pius IX for the purpose of promoting and directing excavations in the Catacombs of Rome and on other sites of Christian antiquarian interest, and of safeguarding the objects found during such excavations. In 1925, Pope Pius XI declared that the Commission was Pontifical and its competencies were defined in detail and reaffirmed recently in the conventions between the Holy See and the Italian State.
The Roman Colleges, also referred to as the Pontifical Colleges in Rome, are institutions established and maintained in Rome for the education of future ecclesiastics of the Catholic Church. Traditionally many were for students of a particular nationality. The colleges are halls of residence in which the students follow the usual seminary exercises of piety, study in private, and review the subjects treated in class. In some colleges there are special courses of instruction but the regular courses in philosophy and theology are given in a few large central institutions, such as Pontifical Urbaniana University, the Pontifical Gregorian University, the Pontifical Lateran University, and the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, known as the Angelicum.
The Church of San Pellegrino in Vaticano is an ancient Roman Catholic oratory in the Vatican City, located on the Via dei Pellegrini. The church is dedicated to Saint Peregrine of Auxerre, a Roman priest appointed by Pope Sixtus II who had suffered martyrdom in Gaul in the third century. It is one of the oldest churches in the Vatican City.
Johann Peter Kirsch was a Luxembourgish ecclesiastical historian and biblical archaeologist.
Gilles Wach is a French Roman Catholic priest, co-founder and Prior General of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, a society of apostolic life of pontifical right.
The Hypogeum of Vibia is part of a small complex of pagan burial chambers in Rome which were constructed along the Via Appia in the late 4th century CE. It is named for the burials of a woman named Vibia and her husband Vincentius, a priest of the Thraco-Phrygian god Sabazios. The hypogeum is notable for the paintings that show the deceased figures in mythological scenes and in the underworld, and for their accompanying inscriptions. Numerous other decorated tombs and inscriptions were found in the complex.
The Pontifical Lombard Seminary of Saints Ambrose and Charles in Urbe is an ecclesiastical institution that serves as a residence for and trains diocesan priests who have been sent to Rome by their bishop to pursue an advanced degree or follow a specialized course of study at one of the pontifical universities there.
The Pontifical Institute for Christian Archaeology is an institute for the study of Christian archaeology, based in Rome. It offers a postgraduate course in Christian archaeology, which includes topography, the history of Christian archaeology, iconography, hagiography, epigraphy, architecture and other topics. The admission requirement is a completed first degree, whilst the degrees it awards are licentiate and doctorate.
The Catacomb of the Iordani is a catacomb on the left side of the ancient via Salaria in Rome, under the modern villa Ada in the Parioli quarter. It is named after the family who owned the land in which it was excavated and was badly damaged by relic-hunters and tomb-robbers before being rediscovered.