Question – Over the years several people have told me they visited St Peter’s tomb beneath the Vatican Basilica. I have never been to Rome myself and admit to being somewhat sceptical about this. Is there really such a tomb and, if so, what evidence is there that it is St Peter’s?
By Fr John Flader
THERE is substantial and very trustworthy evidence of the tomb of the apostle Peter beneath St Peter’s Basilica.
We know that Emperor Nero ordered St Peter’s crucifixion around the year 64 AD.
After the massive fire which destroyed a great part of Rome that year, Nero blamed the Christians for the fire and he had St Peter, their presumed leader, along with many other Christians, put to death.
St Peter was crucified, probably head downwards, in the Circus of Nero, a large area used for public executions and hearings on the Vatican Hill.
Following the Christian custom, St Peter’s body was buried near the site of his martyrdom.
Around 325 AD, Emperor Constantine I had a large basilica with five aisles built over St Peter’s tomb to honour his memory.
The altar of the basilica was directly over the tomb.
When the basilica collapsed, Pope Julius II in 1503 initiated the construction of a new one on the site, the present St Peter’s Basilica.
When Michelangelo was designing it, he ensured that the dome was over St Peter’s tomb.
Beneath the dome, the main altar was directly over the tomb.
When the foundation was being laid for Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s four twisted bronze columns of the baldacchino over the altar, several tombs were discovered beneath the Basilica.
When Pope Pius XI, who died in 1939, indicated that he wished to be buried near St Peter’s tomb, excavations of the site over the next ten years led to the discovery of a complex of mausoleums under the Basilica.
They were part of the ancient Vatican necropolis, where both pagans and Christians were buried in the first centuries after Christ.
A person visiting this necropolis today, commonly known as the scavi, or excavations, walks through an ancient Roman cemetery, with many mausoleums and tombs, some obviously pagan and others Christian.
The highlight of this visit is the tomb of St Peter, where there is a Red Wall, so-called because of the red plaster which covered it, with many Greek graffiti only partially intact.
One of them has been interpreted to read “Peter is here”.
Built into this wall was a Tropaion, a shrine with a shelf of travertine extending out from the wall and supported by two marble columns.
Above and below the shelf niches were built into the wall.
The Tropaion was made around the year 160, at the same time as the wall.
In front of it was a large rectangular area paved with tiles, white with green borders. It was obviously a sacred space where people could gather to pray.
Around this area are the tombs of other Christians, many of them early Popes.
Some of the tombs are arranged in a semicircle around the central tomb of St Peter, a sign of the importance of that tomb.
It is estimated that there are as many as 91 Popes buried in the necropolis, along with other important people.
As regards the bones of St Peter, his skull is believed to be in the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome, alongside the skull of St Paul, since at least the ninth century.
In 1942, during the excavations which followed the burial of Pope Pius XI, the Administrator of St Peter’s Basilica, Ludwig Kaas, discovered some bones in another tomb near the Tropaion.
He ordered them to be stored elsewhere for safe keeping during the excavations.
After his death, archaeologist Margherita Guarducci discovered these remains by chance.
An examination revealed that they were of a man in his sixties from the first century.
With this and other evidence, Guarducci then informed Pope Paul VI of the findings, and on 26 June 1968 the Pope announced that they were the bones of St Peter.
On November 24, 2013, the bones were displayed publicly for the first time after the closing Mass of the Year of Faith, celebrated by Pope Francis.
On July 2, 2019, it was announced that Pope Francis had given nine fragments of the bones to the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew of Constantinople, as a gesture of goodwill in view of the ongoing work towards communion between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches.
The rest of the bones lie beneath the high altar of St Peter’s Basilica.
So, as you can see, there is abundant evidence of the tomb of St Peter beneath the Basilica.
