The Chains of Saint Peter

The Acts of the Apostles tells how King Herod had Peter bound with two chains and guarded by soldiers in Jerusalem. On the night before his trial an angel woke him: “And the chains fell off from his hands… And they came to the iron gate that leadeth to the city, which of itself opened to them” (Acts 12).

According to tradition, the Empress Eudoxia, wife of Valentinian III, received the chains of Jerusalem and sent them to Pope Leo the Great in Rome. When the Pope held them beside the chains that had bound Peter in the Mamertine prison in Rome before his martyrdom, the two joined miraculously into a single chain. The Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli, “Saint Peter in Chains,” was rebuilt in the fifth century to house them.

The chains are kept in a gilded bronze urn with glass sides beneath the high altar. Pilgrims have venerated them for more than fifteen hundred years, and popes used to send filings from them to kings and bishops as precious gifts.

The basilica is also famous for Michelangelo’s statue of Moses, the centrepiece of the tomb of Pope Julius II.

Where

Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, Italy

When to see it

On view daily in a reliquary beneath the high altar. Their feast is kept on 1 August.

Map

Find it on OpenStreetMap

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Saint Peter