Pagan Temples Converted into Christian Churches Part 2

Early Christians repurposed eleven Roman temples that had been used for pagan gods. You can read about the first six temples in part 1.

7. Stefano delle Carrozze/The temple of Hercules

At the end of the second century BC, a round marble temple dedicated to Hercules once occupied space in the Forum Boarium, which is the market area in the old river port of Rome. In the twelfth century, this temple was converted into a church, dedicated to Santo Stefano (Saint Stephen).

A new roof and a bell tower were erected, along with the construction of a wall in between the columns of the portico. The church was called Santo Stefano Delle Carrozze, after the name of the street and by the seventeenth century was dedicated to Santa Maria del Sole. The remains of the ancient Roman temple came to light at the end of the nineteenth century when the church was deconsecrated.

8. San Nicola in Carcere

Basilica di San Nicola is dedicated to the memory of Saint Nicholas. This structure was built between 1087 and 1197. Both Roman Catholics and mainstream Christians visit this church, where there are relics belonging to the man upon whom the Santa Claus legend is based.

9. Santa Maria de Secundicerio/Temple of Porunus

This temple was built in the first century BC and was dedicated to Portunus, the god of harbours. It had earlier been falsely asserted that this structure was erected in honor of Fortuna Virilis.

This was because the main city port of ancient Rome was just to the north, where transshipment boats from the seagoing ports at Porto and Ostia tied up. In 872, in order to change the temple into a church, the entrance wall of the cella was demolished, and the gaps between the columns of the portico were filled in so that one large room could be created.

10. San Sebastiano al Palatino-Temple of Divus Agustus or Emperor Elagabalus

The origin of this medieval church is not known with certainty. The brick substructure dates back to the reign of the final Flavian Emperor, Domitian. Excavations that were carried out near the beginning of the twentieth century revealed a concrete foundation from a peripteral temple.

The dimensions were 60 meters long and 40 meters wide. This could be the remains of the unidentifiable Temple of Divus Augustus, which was dedicated in the first century AD. This structure was rebuilt by Domitian after being destroyed in a fire. Some believe this temple, built by the emperor Elagabalus in the third century.

11.San Nicola dei Cesarini/Temple of Juturna

This church is dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Myrna and is believed to have once been a temple of Juturna, the Roman goddess of fountains, wells, and springs. Portions of the temple’s peripteral colonnade were incorporated into its outer walls. The church is believed in 1186, 1611, and 1695, Cesarini was added to the name in honor of a prominent family.

When it was realized that this structure was on the site of not one, but two ancient temples, the building was demolished in 1929. All that remains are a fe architectural fragments and a cat-decorated display of ancient ruins, located in the middle of the Largo di Torre Argentina in the rione Pigna.