This is possibly more than anyone ever wanted to know about the patron
saint of archaeology, but.....

St. Damasus I (Pope 366-84 - not to be confused with Damasus II, Pope in
1048) was, along with St. Liberius (Pope 352-365), a crucial figure in
re-asserting the role of the Papacy as leader of the church in both West
and East (well, until 1054, anyway) following the modest role granted to
the institution by that luverly theocratic autocrat Constantine the
Great.

This was not entirely at Damasus' insistence, either - the Eastern
church actively sought Damasus' support for Orthodoxy and "church peace"
during the theological controversies of the period, the Council of
Antioch in 379 accepted the Pope's formularies, and St. Ambrose and the
Council of Aquileia recognised the Papacy as "the fount and centre of
the Catholic communion".  Damasus himself refuted the third canon of the
Council of Constantinople in 382 in order to assert the non-synodal
nature of Papal supremacy.  It's worth noting, however, that Damasus was
building on the precedent Liberius set by declaring the Council of
Rimini invalid and accepting the Eastern rebels back into the fold.

Those inclined to make archaeological pilgrimages (of either nature) can
see an inscription to St. Damasus (in 'turgid prose') at his supposed
burial-place in the crypt of the Popes, in the catacomb of St. Calixtus
(Pope 217-223).  The 4th-century church at the entrance to the catacomb
is (I think) still standing.


I think I'm in danger of veering dangerously off-topic now, so I'll
think I'll just leave it at that.

Alasdair Brooks


Denis Gojak wrote:

> I have just found out that there is a patron saint for archaeologists!  Perhaps
> unsurprising, given that there is one for just about everything else.
>
> His name is Saint Damasus and his big day is 11 December, next Monday.
>
> He was a former Pope of the Fourth Century, elected when Rome was still just another
> place where bishops lived, but marked his career by undertaking surveys and excavations
> to relocate the tombs of Roman martyrs, so both not having to travel very far for
> fieldwork opportunities and justifying the primacy of Rome while the Christian church
> was still very decentralised.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alasdair Brooks
Department of Archaeology
University of York
King's Manor
York
YO1 7EP
England, UK
phone: 01904 433931
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The Buffalo tastes the same on both sides of the border"
Sitting Bull