Mediterranean Enchantment – 2009
Catacombs and Ship
Noordam at Civitavecchia
April 26 - May 10, 2009
Updated July 4, 2009
By LEWIS NOLAN
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Wednesday, April 29, 2009
– From Rome to Ship Noordam off Coast of Italy
We
arose about 7:30 a.m. after sleeping comfortably in the ritzy St. Regis Hotel
in Central Rome. Our room, No. 333, was a gem of luxurious quarters with a huge,
marble bathroom and a 42-inch HD TV. As with yesterday, I made breakfast out of
a leftover sandwich from dinner at the hotel restaurant in the lobby. And also
as with yesterday and her custom, Betty went without early morning food.
We
checked out of the prepaid hotel at 9:30 a.m. It was a good deal we got in our
Northwest Air weekend package arranged by Gulliver’s Travel in our hometown of
Memphis; regular rack rates were roughly five times our “deal,” or 1,350 Euros
a night (about $2,000).
One
of the highpoints of our morning was a visit to a church we would have never
found on our own. It was the Basilica of St. Peter’s Chains located adjacent to
a college in Central Rome. We were awed by the magnificent, large marble
sculpture by Michelangelo of Moses. In the church, the iron chains and manacles
that once held then miraculously parted from St. Peter’s arms in a Roman jail
long ago have been preserved behind glass on an altar covered with a golden
arch that signals the importance of the relics beneath.
As
the Revised Standard version of the New Testament tells the story in Acts 12: 6
and 7, “The very night Herod was about to bring him out, Peter was sleeping
between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were
guarding the prison.; and behold, an angel of the Lord appeared, and a light
shone in the cell; and he struck Peter on the side and awoke him, saying “Get
up quickly.” And the chains fell off his hands. . .” The story continues with
Peter walking out of the prison with the Angel, who disappeared.
If
the church has it, we did not see any accounts of how the iron chains came to
be recovered and encased in glass 2,000 years later. However, I was still
curious and once back home did an Internet search for “St. Peter’s Chains” using
Google. I unearthed the following information attributed to a historic writer.
St. Peter,
the first pope, was imprisoned on 2 separate occasions during his 25 year reign
as the Vicar of Christ. The pious Eudocia, wife of Emperor Teodosio II,
journeyed to Jerusalem and found the chain that had bound Peter during his
second imprisonment. According to the Acts of the Apostles (12:6), an angel
caused the chains to fall from Peter's hands and led him past slumbering guards
to freedom.
The chain was eventually given as a gift to Pope St. Leo
the Great (440-461). In Rome there was already a chain that was greatly prized
which had bound the saint during his nine month imprisonment in the Mamertine
Prison near the Forum. When the pope compared the two chains, they miraculously
fused together into one unbreakable series of links. Because of this miracle,
Empress Eudocia built the Basilica of Saint Peter in Chains, and dedicated it
to the apostle in the year 442. The relic is now kept in a golden urn beneath
the high altar in the Basilica, close to the famous statue of Michelangelo's Moses.
St. Peter was crucified
in the year 67. He requested to be nailed to the cross upside-down,
because he did not feel worthy to die in the same manner as his Savior, Jesus
Christ.
As promised, our hired
local guide and driver, Franco Lattughi, drove us out what turned into the
ancient Appian Way to the south. The narrow roadway lined with stone and
concrete walls was built by the Roman Legion to provide rapid movement to
soldiers 2,000 years ago.
On
the drive out of Rome we had additional good looks at what remains of the
famous Coliseum where gladiators once battled and early Christians were
painfully put to death, the grassy Circus Maximus track for chariot races, and
the weathered statues and monuments of the Roman Forum where the remains of
Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar are buried.
We
drove out the Appian Way to what were the outskirts of the city of Rome many
centuries ago. It is now mainly farmland and groves of olive trees. There, we
arrived at what has been known for centuries as the Catacombs of St. Sebastian,
an underground network of seven miles of tunnels and chambers dug out of a soft
stone for the legal burial of Christians.
They
were given the name of Sebastian in his honor. He was himself a converted
Christian who served as Tribune in an elite Roman Army fighting unit, the First
Cohort of the Roman Imperial Guard. As a high military officer, he had the
authority – and the will – to help the early Christians practice their faith
out of the sight of the pagan government. Sebastian was caught and condemned to
a public and painful death by arrows shot into his body while he was tied to
pillar.
Abandoned
for death, Sebastian miraculously survived his deep wounds. He personally
appeared before Emperor Diocletian to appeal for understanding of the
Christians’ religion. He was sentenced to death by flogging and was whipped
until there was no doubt that he was still alive. His body was tossed into a
sewer to keep Christians from having a new cause. But a Christian lady by the
name of Lucia saw Sebastian in a vision, found his body and buried it in one of
the approved catacombs that later carried his name.
We
added a visit to the Catacombs to our itinerary on the recommendation of a dear
friend, Mike Pietrangelo of Memphis with whom I happily worked for many years
and who subsequently served as our family attorney. He is a proud Italian
American who visited the Catacombs while in Italy some years ago.
We
joined a Catacombs tour group led by a guide who spoke perfect English. He told
us that some “relics” from St. Sebastian’s remains are now elaborately entombed
in a church at the main entrance to the Catacombs. But we also learned that other of his “relics” plus virtually all
the remains of early Christians – many hundreds and perhaps thousands - buried
long ago in the top layer of tunnels have been moved and reburied in a lower
level to safeguard them from tourists filching souvenir bones and skulls.
A
section of tunnels about 30 feet below ground level are open to tour. Electric
lights provide dim illumination in what I thought were rather creepy passages. With
a trace of claustrophobia, I had an uneasy feeling that it could be nightmarish
to be plunged into darkness in the event of a power failure and have to grope
one’s way out. Evidently the genes passed to me through my mother’s coal mining
family of West Virginia are not strong.
Open,
stone boxes that for centuries held human bones rest on earth platforms in the
Catacombs. The equivalent carved and painted of “tombstones” placed in the
tunnel walls here and there are inscribed in Latin and ancient Greek. Leading
off the tunnels are elaborate “rooms” with vaulted ceilings that were the
preserve of wealthy families. The guide told us that the rooms and tunnels were
hand-carved out of soft rock that hardened when exposed to the air. The digging
was done by church employees and volunteers out of the spirit of providing free
burial to members. Tourist photography is discouraged.
An
enduring legend is that the bodies of the Christian Saints Paul and Peter were
hidden for a time in the Sebastian Catacombs during a period of anti-Christian
“purges” by the Roman government. Much later they were entombed in churches
bearing their names at the Vatican. Our guide made it clear that the Christian
Catacombs were tolerated by Rome even before the religion was recognized as a
legal and proper faith following a famous decree by Emperor Constantine in the
4th Century. That ruling came after he credited his vision of a
cross as helping with a great military victory.
After
viewing the elaborate “tombs” containing the remains of St. Sebastian and other
dignitaries in the church at the entrance to the Catacombs, Franco drove us to
the ancient Roman port of Civitavecchia where we would board the Holland
America Ship Noordam for the 10-day cruise in the Western Mediterranean. We
found that the port is a busy place that is marked by a large, stone fort
designed by Michelangelo. Passing in and out of an enormous, stone “breakwater”
there are all kinds of cruise ships, commercial freighters, fishing boats and
yachts of all descriptions. It is a ferryboat stopping point for the regular
ships serving Sardinia, Sicily and the countless ports and islands along the
coast of Italy.
Boarding
Holland America’s Ship Noordam was a breeze, just as it was to board their ship
Ryndam in Vancouver in July, 2008. The line’s staff is expert and friendly. Our
accommodations arranged by our travel agent, Erin Bobbit de Padilla of
Gulliver’s Travels in Memphis, were wonderful. We were pleased with the size,
furnishings and equipment of our Superior Veranda Suite booked under an upgrade
program. A telephoned request for some extra blankets was met within 15
minutes. The large deck with lawn furniture just beyond double-glass doors that
overlooked the harbor and Mediterranean was inviting.
However,
feeling a bit out-of-sorts because of a developing upper respiratory viral
infection, I was just a bit put off by minor faults in the boat’s dining room
services that evening. I wondered if the captain of this ship was as good as
the captain and his crew on the Ryndam had been on our last cruise. (I was
quite pleased that everything on the ship over the next week and a half turned
out to be near perfect and discounted my initial slightly negative impression
to travel-induced crankiness.) The ship was gently rocking from rough seas the
first night of our voyage.
The
king-size bed in our large and nicely furnished stateroom was quite
comfortable. But I slept only fitfully due to the new surroundings as we sailed
that night to the first stop on the cruise. Due to rough seas, the ship was
somewhat “rocking and rolling.”
Continue with Part IV of
Travelogue / Return
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