First Dec. 25 Xmas held at Pagan Shrine

By ARIEL DAVID
Associated Press Writer


ROME (AP) -- The church where the tradition of celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25 was invented, was built on an old pagan shrine as part of an effort to supposedly spread Christianity, a leading Italian scholar says.


Italian archaeologists last month unveiled an underground grotto that they believe ancient Romans revered as the place where a wolf nursed Rome's legendary founder Romulus and his twin brother Remus.


A few feet above the grotto, or "Lupercale," the Emperor Constantine built the Basilica of St. Anastasia, where some believe Christmas was first celebrated on Dec. 25.


Constantine made Christianity a lawful religion in 313. He played a key role in unifying the Roman Pagan beliefs and practices with those of the early followers of Jesus.


In 325, he convened the Council of Nicaea, which fixed the dates of important old world Roman festivals. It opted to mark Christmas, then celebrated at varying dates, on Dec. 25 to be unified with the Roman
Solstice Saturna festival celebrating the birth of the sun god, Andrea Carandini, a professor of archaeology at Rome's La Sapienza University, told reporters Friday.


The Basilica of St. Anastasia was built as soon as a year after the Nicaean Council. It probably was where Christmas was first marked on Dec. 25, part of broader efforts to unify pagan practices and holidays
with Christian celebrations in the early days of the new religion, Carandini said.


"The church was built to supposedly Christianize these pagan places of worship," he said. "It was normal to put a church at these pagan places.


Rome's archaeological superintendent Angelo Bottini, who did not take part in Carandini's research, said that hypothesis was "evocative and coherent" and "helps us understand the mechanisms of the passage of
joining paganism to Christianity."


Bottini and Carandini both said future digs could bolster the link between the pagan shrine and the church if structures belonging to the "Lupercale" are found directly below the basilica.


The Basilica St. Anastasia was the first church to rise not on the ancient city's outskirts, but on the Palatine Hill, the palatial center of power and religion in imperial Rome, Carandini said. Though little known today, at the time of Constantine it was one of the most important basilicas for Catholics in Rome, he said.


The "Lupercale" shrine - named after the "lupa," Latin for she-wolf - is 52 feet below ground. So far, archaeologists have only been able to see it by inserting probes and cameras that have revealed a vaulted ceiling decorated with colored marble and a white imperial eagle.


Though some experts have expressed doubts that the pagan grotto is in fact the mythological nursery of Romulus and Remus, most archaeologists believe the shrine fits the descriptions found in ancient texts, and plans are being drawn up to excavate the structure further.