The Splendour of Santa Maria Maggiore

 

Today our group visited the remarkable Marian church, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Its inner core with its dazzling mosaics remains intact from the time that it was built around 430 CE in response to the Council of Ephesus, which declared Mary to be the Mother of God. Many additions have been built onto the original basilica over the centuries, reflecting developments and changes in the Catholic Church. As someone who studies decolonial theology and the interplay of Christianity and empire, I was especially fascinated by this church structure, which was built a mere fifty years after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica in 380.

While I could not help but be in awe at Santa Maria Maggiore’s grandeur, beauty and sheer size, I also could not help but think about how much of this magnificence came into being at the expense of imperial oppression. The two long rows of pillars running the length of the original church came from the imperial plundering of Hellenistic and Roman pagan temples. Once Christianity became the imperial religion, suppression of paganism and the plunder of its sacred sites was sanctioned. Many centuries later, the basilica’s stunning ceiling was created. It is gilded in gold taken from the Americas and the Indigenous peoples by the early European explorers and conquerors like Christopher Columbus. Similar to its predecessor of the fifth century, the Catholic Church of the fifteenth and sixteenth century saw nothing wrong with stealing from the riches of this new set of heathens and pagans in the Americas. Far from being considered wrong, these thefts were done in the name of glorifying God.  

I do not wish to take anything away from the marvel that is Santa Maria Maggiore, but as the Catholic Church aims to truly enter an age of truth and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, we need to be careful not to be so dazzled by Christianity’s great churches as to become blind to those living on the underside of history and empire.

by Rosemary Boissonneau