St. Peter's Chair, Station at St Peter in Chains

Monday of the First Week of Lent
Station at St. Peter's Chains
(S. Pietro in Vincoli)

The precious relic of the Chains of St. Peter

The Station is one of the most ancient Roman basilicas
built by the Empress Eudocia Licinia in 442,
during the pontificate of
St. Leo the Great.
She here placed the chain with which
St. Peter had been bound in prison in Jerusalem,
brought from the East by her mother Eudoxia Athenais.
Another chain of the Apostle was already venerated in Rome,
that with which he had been fettered in the Marmertine prison.
St. Leo the Great united the two,
forming one continuous chain about two yards long.
In the fifth century this basilica was one of the twenty-five parishes of Rome.

Michelangelo's famous
Statue of Moses
in the Basilica of St. Peter in Chains.
This statue, said to be the greatest masterpiece of sculpture
since the time of the Greeks,
is full of grandeur, power and expression.