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Friday after Ash Wednesday John and Paul were officers at the Imperial Court in the service of Constantia (+360), daughter of Constantine (306-337). Tradition says that the brothers had held high positions in Constantinople but left there and returned to their Roman home on the Coelian Hill when asked to serve Julian the Apostate (emperor 331-363) in the same capacity. Julian ordered them to be put to the usual trial of the faith, namely, to renounce their God in favor of the pagan deities. However, because of their great popularity and nobility, they were not martyred publicly; instead, they were beheaded secret in their palace on June 26, 362. Julian himself, ironically, was brutally killed exactly one year later, on the very same day. The original sanctuary, founded in 398 by the senator Byzantius and his son, St. Pammachius (a friend of St. Jerome), was built directly over the saints’ original house which had been filled in with rubble and earth. Unfortunately, this ancient basilica was practically demolished by the Norman raider, Robert Guiscard, in 1084. Paschal II (1099-1118) began the restoration. Adrian IV (1154-1159), the only English Pope, made considerable improvements, adding the eight ancient granite columns to the portico, the Romanesque apse and campanile, and the cosmatesque pavement. Today the interior is basically baroque, due to an eighteenth-century restoration. Note the excavations which reveal three distinct buildings, a private house, the remains of an ancient palace, and a fourth-century oratory complete with Christian frescoes. There is a glass disc in the church pavement directly over the martyr’s tomb, and the tomb of St. Paul of the Cross (1694-1775), founder of the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ (the Passionists) is also found in this church. Their monastery, built in 1867, adjoins the basilica, for which they have cared since 1773. The Romaneque bell tower, c. 1150, rests on travertine marble from the Temple of Claudius. The plates among the bricks on the walls of the bell tower are copies of Moorish ceramic tiles with Arabic lettering. The originals, brought from Malaga in Spain, have been moved to the excavation museum in the church. Off the right aisle, at entrance to the domed chapel that contains the relics of St. Paul of the Cross, are two small chapels with other ancient relics of martyrs. On the right-hand side, the fourth-century martyr Saturnius is interred. On the left side are the relics of eleven martyrs from Scillium, North Africa, who were martyred in Carthage in 180 after refusing to hand over one of St. Paul’s letters. Santi Giovanni e Paolo was one of the original twenty-five station churches in Rome. Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) was titular here, as was Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York (1889-1967) and Terence Cardinal Cooke, also Archbishop of New York (1969-1983). Cardinal Spellman (Class of 1916 of the North American College) helped to provide for new excavations and large-scale repairs between 1949 and 1952, with funding from Joseph Kennedy. Cardinal Spellman’s heraldic device can be seen on the exterior of the building. Location: On the Coelian Hill, up the Clivo de Scauro, in Piazza dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo. Directions: Take any bus to Piazza Venezia (40, 46, 62, 64, 916). From the bus stop next to San Marco (across from the monument to Vittorio Emmanuele II), take the 60 or 175 bus to the first stop after the Colosseum (on via di San Gregorio). Cross San Gregorio and take the small staircase up to the back of the basilica.
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