Feast Day: July 20th | Patronage: Ravenna Italy and Region, Those suffering from Epilepsy or Gout | Iconography: Chasuble for Mass, Pallium as Metropolitan Bishop, with Sheep or Shepherd Staff as a Pastor, Tonsure and White Hair and Beard linking him to St. Peter
The Roman Martyrology gives us a typically terse record of the life and death of the early bishop, St. Apollinaris:
In Ravenna, the natal day of St. Apollinaris, bishop. After the Apostle Peter ordained him in Rome and sent him to Ravenna, he underwent many different tortures. Afterwards, he preached in Emilia and converted many people from the worship of idols. When he returned to Ravenna he suffered a glorious martyrdom under Caesar Vespasian.
Assuming you all wanted more of a story than that, I turn to the Basilica that now houses most of the mortal remains of this early bishop. We travel to the Basilica of St. Apollinae Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy (“Nuovo” to distinguish it from an older basilica that originally held St. Apollinaris’s relics, St. Apollinare in Classe. His relics were removed from that church, over the place of his martyrdom, in 856 AD because pirates kept threatening in raids from the Adriatic coast.)
What is so cool about the New St. Apollinaris is that it was originally built in 504, and dedicated to Christ the Redeemer, by the Ostrogoth King, Theodoric the Great (as his personal palace chapel… after he had taken over Rome and moved his capital to Ravenna). Also, Theodoric was an Arian! So, this church would have to be reconsecrated as a Catholic Church, and dedicated to the great foe of Arianism St. Martin of Tours, in 561. (Only later would it be dedicated to St. Apollinaris once his relics were moved there). This all means that, if we examine the church carefully, we can see indications of its Arian roots. Many overtly Arian (as well as Theodoric’s empirical) imagery has been removed over the centuries but not quite all. Stretching down the entire length of both sides of the nave (body) of the Church are grand mosaics depicting saints approaching Our Lord. To the left are 22 female virgins stepping towards Our Lady holding the Christ-child surrounded by four angels and approached by three magi (here given the names Balthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar, the earliest time we find those names given to these kings). On the right are 26 male martyrs, approaching Christ the King attended by four angels.
High above these saints are depictions of the life of Christ as the congregation would have heard during the readings throughout Holy Week, a permanent visual depiction of the most important days of the liturgical year! Also we discover in this Church depictions of the port of Ravenna from those early days, an artistic rendering of Theodoric’s palace, and the fantastically detailed raiment and crown of each of the many saints. (Hit up the QR Code for a video walking you around this Basilica).
But I want to focus in on that depiction of the mature, reigning, Christ, Who here in Ravenna is bearded. Now, you and I wouldn’t notice such a detail given how typical it is ever since to see our Lord with facial hair. But, at this time in Roman culture, men were typically clean-shaven (a practice made popular several hundred years earlier by Alexander the Great!) and would only grow out a beard when they were mourning. SO, a bearded Christ was actually a covertly Arian depiction of Jesus because the Arian heresy was the one that rejected Christ’s divinity, something they claimed here by using a beard to emphasize His human maturation, mortality, sufferings, etc. Needless to say, a beard no longer symbolizes an Arian conception of Christ, but when this mosaic was made, it did have that emphasis!
– Fr. Dominic brings you all of these details not just to change things up a bit this week, but to remind all of us that the way we image, speak, or portray Jesus does matter! He became man, wonderfully allowing us to depict Him at all, yet we must be careful not to let our own conceptions of Our Lord ever tug us away from Who our faith tells us He truly is.