On November 9 the Church celebrates the dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran — the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, and, as the inscription over its facade reads, "the mother and head of all the churches of the city and the world." The basilica was consecrated by Pope Sylvester I in 324, in theConstantine-era peace of the Church, making it the oldest public church in the Western world. The feast was extended to the universal Church in 1565 by Pius IV.
The Lateran Basilica — dedicated first to Christ the Saviour, then to St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist — has been the seat of the papacy for most of the first Christian millennium. Five ecumenical councils met there. The present facade, by Alessandro Galilei (1735), faces the Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome. The basilica's interior, rebuilt by Borromini in 1646, preserves the original Constantinian baptistery alongside, where Constantine himself was baptized. The Scala Santa — the Holy Stairs, brought from Jerusalem by St. Helena, which Christ ascended at Pontius Pilate's praetorium — stands across the piazza in their own sanctuary.
The dedication feast of the Lateran is not simply about one church. It celebrates the mystery of the Church as the temple of God, built of living stones, of which the Lateran is the visible sign. The readings of the Mass — Ezekiel's vision of the temple waters flowing out to heal the nations, and Christ's cleansing of the Temple — make the feast a meditation on the Church as the place where God dwells among his people.
