Expert links pagan shrine to first Christmas

ROME -- A recently discovered pagan shrine dedicated to Rome's legendary founder Romulus and his brother Remus is being linked by some experts to the first celebration of Christmas held on the date that still marks the festivity today.

Last month Italian archaeologists unveiled an underground grotto, which they believe ancient Romans worshipped as the place where a wolf nursed the legendary twins.

Now, a top Italian scholar thinks a church built on the site of the shrine was where Christmas was first marked on Dec. 25 — making it a symbolic place in efforts to link pagan practices and Christian celebrations.

"This is very probably the church where the first Christmas was celebrated," Andrea Carandini, a professor of archaeology at Rome's La Sapienza University, told reporters Friday. "Now we know why."

He said the site of the "Lupercale" shrine was chosen by the 4th century Emperor Constantine to build the Basilica of St. Anastasia — 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.

The church is little known today, but at the time it was one of the most important basilicas for Christians in Rome, Carandini said. Placing the church just a few steps from an important pagan shrine was part of Constantine's strategy of promoting Christianity while linking it to the practices of the more ancient religion.

"The church was built to christianize these pagan places of worship," Carandini said. "It was normal to put a church near these places to try to 'save' them."

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

Constantine ended the frequent waves of anti-Christian persecutions in the Roman empire by making Christianity a lawful religion in 313, and he played a key role in unifying the beliefs and practices of the early followers of Jesus.