Basilica of San Clemente

Why pilgrims come

Visit the resting place and legacy of St. Clement I

San Clemente is one of Rome’s most complete encounters with the layers of Christian memory. The present twelfth-century basilica stands above a fourth-century church, which itself rests over Roman buildings. A pilgrim can descend from living liturgy through early medieval frescoes toward the physical world in which Rome’s first Christian communities took shape.

The basilica is also a major shrine of saints. The relics traditionally identified with Pope St. Clement I and St. Ignatius of Antioch are venerated beneath the high altar. In the lower basilica, pilgrims visit the traditional tomb of St. Cyril, the ninth-century missionary who, with his brother Methodius, brought Scripture and liturgy to the Slavic peoples in their own language. Cyril died in Rome in 869 and was buried here at Methodius’s request. His relics were removed for safekeeping during the French occupation and largely lost; a surviving fragment was solemnly returned in the twentieth century and is venerated in the upper church.

The official basilica explains that Cyril and Methodius had earlier brought St. Clement’s relics from Crimea to Rome. An eleventh-century fresco in the lower church shows the solemn transfer. Nearby wall paintings form one of Rome’s richest surviving early-medieval cycles, while still deeper rooms preserve a Roman house, a Mithraic sanctuary, and flowing underground water.

Come first for prayer, not archaeology alone. Honor Clement’s witness, Ignatius’s journey toward martyrdom, and Cyril’s missionary intelligence; then descend slowly enough to see how successive Christian generations built literally upon what they had received. Excavation access is ticketed and opening times differ from worship hours, so consult the basilica before travel.

Pray first in the living upper basilica, then descend through the fourth-century church to St. Cyril’s traditional tomb and the earliest layers of Christian Rome.