Churches

Visiting the station churches of Rome began in the fourth century after the Edict of Milan gave Christians freedom to observe their religion. Then, at certain burial sites of martyrs and on specific days, the Bishop of Rome be gan to gather with his priests and Christians in the city to celebrate Mass.

By the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great at the end of the sixth century, the places and order for this Lenten pilgrimage were set. During the Avignon pa pacy in the fourteenth century and afterward, the station church pilgrimage largely ceased to exist until the seminarians at the North American College revived it in the 1970s and have continued it to this day.