Besset Sylviane retweetledi

When Michelangelo designed Saint Peter's Basilica he was building over something🇻🇦
He didn't know exactly what. Nobody did. But ancient tradition had always insisted that the great basilica in Rome stood on the site of Peter's martyrdom and burial, that somewhere beneath the marble floors and the papal altars were the bones of the fisherman from Galilee.
In the 1940s Pope Pius XII authorised excavations beneath the basilica floor.
What archaeologists found 20 feet beneath the altar stopped them in their tracks.
A first century necropolis, an ancient Roman cemetery, running directly beneath the length of the basilica. And at the centre of it, beneath the main altar, a monument that ancient sources had described for centuries. Surrounding it were walls covered in ancient graffiti, pilgrims who had come to this spot for centuries scratching prayers and names into the stone.
On one of those walls, in a niche, was a box of bones. And scratched into the red wall beside it in Greek…
Petros Eni.
Peter is here.
The bones were examined. A robust male. Aged between 60 and 70. First century. Wrapped in a gold threaded purple cloth consistent with someone of great honour.
In 1968 Pope Paul VI made the official announcement, the relics of Saint Peter had been identified beneath the basilica that bears his name.
The fisherman who asked to be crucified upside down because he wasn't worthy to die like his Lord, was buried in the dirt beneath what would become the centre of the Christian world.
And for 2,000 years pilgrims have been walking over his grave without knowing it.
Share this with all the “there’s no evidence Peter was EVER in Rome” crowd and those of goodwill might receive it.
"You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." — Matthew 16:18🇻🇦

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