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The Anglican Centre in Rome has strong links with many other organizations in Rome, some of which are close by in the historic centre of the city and others in different neighbourhoods. While the close bonds remain, many of these organizations have been affected by lockdowns in Rome so please check their websites for further information.
The gallery, based in the same palazzo as the Anglican Centre, is one of Rome’s hidden gems. Like the palace, it remains in the hands of the Doria Pamphilj family and displays their magnificent art collection. It includes paintings and furnishings from Pope Innocent X’s Palazzo Pamphilj, in the nearby Piazza Navona, and the most outstanding painting on display is Velazquez’s portrait of that same pope. Other masterpieces on display include Mary Magdalene by Caracci, and three works by Caravaggio – Penitent Magdalen, The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, and St John the Baptist. Unlike most galleries, where art is displayed on bare white walls, the works here are in stunning rooms that are also worth viewing, from the ballroom to the music room, and add to the atmosphere of the gallery.
Go to https://www.doriapamphilj.it/roma/ for an online tour.
Via del Caravita, 7, 00186, Rome - known as “Caravita”.
The church of San Francesco Saverio is a 17th century church is just around the corner from the Anglican Centre, with which it has strong links. As well as being a fine historic building, admired by visitors to the heart of Rome, it is also home to the Caravita community, an international, English-speaking group who are committed to ecumenism and interreligious dialogue and keen to welcome Christians of other denominations and people curious about the faith. The community normally meet at 11am on Sundays for Mass in English. Two priests serve the community: Fr Anthony P. SooHoo, a Jesuit, who teaches in the Oriental Faculty at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, and Fr Anthony Currer, who works at the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity where he is responsible for the Vatican’s relations with the Anglican and Methodist Communions.
In 2013, Caravita and the Anglican Centre committed to working together through the signing of a covenant which was renewed again in 2016.
Go to http://caravita.org/ for more information, including about online Mass
Via di Monserrato, 45, 00186, Rome
The Venerable English College, often known as the VEC, was first founded as a Catholic seminary in 1579 but has an even earlier history as a hospice for English pilgrims to Rome, founded in 1362. It is the oldest English institution outside the British Isles. Countless English men preparing for the priesthood have studied there and in recent years, Anglican ordinands have also spent some months studying as part of their own preparation for ministry. The VEC celebrates a special Mass offered for Christian unity each year during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, to which ecumenical guests are invited. The current Rector, Fr Philip Whitmore, leaves at the end of the academic year, and will be succeeded by Fr Stephen Wang, currently senior Catholic chaplain to the universities within the Diocese of Westminster.
https://www.vecrome.org/
Via Santa Maria dell'Anima, 30, I-0018, Rome
Centro Pro Unione is an organization founded by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, an order which began life in 1898 as an Anglican Franciscan community and which was later welcomed into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Pius X in 1909. It is devoted to promoting unity among Christians. In the 1950s the friars worked with the Ladies of Bethany and the Foyer Unitas to welcome Protestant and Orthodox visitors to Rome. At that time the friars were also involved with the ecumenical magazine Unitas and with the League of Prayer. In more recent times, the friars have run the Centro Pro Unione as a meeting place for ecumenical research, dialogue and encounter. It is based in the Pamphilj Palace in Piazza Navona where the Doria Pamphilj family first invited the League of Prayer in 1962 to be based.
The Centre also runs talks, many of which are available online. It often works alongside the Anglican Centre on ecumenical events.
https://www.prounione.it/en/
Largo della Sanità Militare, 60, 00184, Rome
The Lay Centre is dedicated to the formation of the laity and promotion of the lay vocation and is also committed to ecumenical dialogue. It offers spiritual formation courses and conferences to groups. It also has a residence which can accommodate lay students enrolled in pontifical universities in Rome and professors in Rome for study or research.
The Centre’s origins lie in Casa Foyer Unitas which was founded by the Ladies of Bethany, a Dutch order of nuns, during the Second Vatican Council, to provide accommodation for ecumenical observers to the Council who met for debriefing with Council participants in the Centro Pro Unione next door. When the Ladies of Bethany’s work in Rome finished in the 1980s, it was taken up by their student assistants, who founded the Lay Centre.
During the pandemic the Centre has been offering spiritual reflections by email. For details of these, go to: http://www.laycentre.org/
Piazza Sant’Egidio 3a, 00153, Rome
The Community of Sant’Egidio is today a worldwide lay community, founded in Rome in 1968 by Andrea Riccardi and based since 1973 in the former Carmelite church of Sant’Egidio in Trastevere. Sant’Egidio is focused on the needs of the poor and arbitration of conflicts. In Rome it has a special focus on the homeless and refugees. It is also represented in 73 countries across the globe and is committed to working ecumenically. It has strong links with the Anglican Centre, which supports its work with the vulnerable and its commitment to peace.
Sant’Egidio has always combined its work with prayer and a particular focus is the evening prayer held in the Church of Sant’Egidio in Trastevere.
You can join in with the prayer of the Community of Sant'Egidio online. It is broadcast live on both the website of Sant’Egidio, Facebook page and Youtube channel from Monday to Friday at 8 pm (UTC 1). The Liturgy is streamed on Saturdays at 7.30 pm (UTC). For the website, go to https://www.santegidio.org/pageID/30008/langID/en/THE-COMMUNITY.html
Via del Babuino, 153, Rome
All Saints Church has been home to Anglicans in Rome for 120 years. It has a regular congregation of people based in Rome as well as welcoming tourists and pilgrims visiting the city. It holds two Masses on Sundays at 8.30 and 10.30 am as well as a midweek Mass on a Thursday at 12.45 pm, and choral evensong on the fourth Thursday of the month at 7pm from September to June. In February 2017, Pope Francis visited All Saints – the first visit of its kind of a pope to an Anglican Community.
Since 2016 All Saints has been running a joint food distribution programme with its Roman Catholic sister church of Ognissanti.
For more details of services go to: https://www.allsaintsrome.org/
Pontificio Collegio BedaViale San Paolo, 18, 00146 Rome
The Beda – named after one of England’s most important historian, the Venerable Bede – was first founded in 1852 when Pope Pius IX approved plans for a college for male English converts to Catholicism to train for the priesthood. Later it also welcomed cradle Catholics who came to the priesthood later in life, and young, newly ordained priests who undertook postgraduate studies in Rome. It was in 1899 that Pope Leo XIII, who had a particular devotion to the Venerable Bede, the eighth century author of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, decided that the college should be named after him. In the 1950s, as student numbers grew, Pope Pius XII provided the college with Vatican owned land next to St Paul’s Outside the Walls so that the present Beda College could be built. While the Beda remains the responsibility of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, it now has seminarians from around the world. The current rector is Canon Philip Gillespie.
https://bedacollege.org/
Basilica San Paolo Fuori Le Mura
00120 Citta’ del Vaticano
St Paul’s Outside The Walls is one of four papal basilicas, the other three being St Peter’s, St John Lateran and St Mary Major. It is situated within Italian territory but is owned by the Holy See. The church was erected over the burial site of St Paul with work done under various popes including Leo I, 440-461 when the mosaics were completed. Then, in 1823, the basilica was destroyed by fire and Pope Leo XII ordered the replacement to be a replica, although it was only in the most general sense the same as the original.
In 2006, Vatican archaeologists announced that they had found a sarcophagus beneath the altar which they believed contained the remains of St Paul and carbon dating later confirmed they are from the correct era.
Each year the basilica hosts the final service of the Week of Christian Unity at which the Pope officiates.
https://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_paolo/index_en.html
Piazza di Ponte Sant' Angelo 68, 00186 Rome
The Ponte Sant’Angelo Methodist Church is Rome’s English-speaking Methodist congregation, part of the Rome Methodist Circuit but served by ministers of the British Methodist Circuit. It has been a Protestant place of worship since 1877.
The multicultural congregation has members from across Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Caribbean. The Church has strong links with the Anglican Centre and works in partnership with it on many issues. For those who visit in non-Covid times, a trip to the building’s roof terrace is a must, with magnificent views across to St Peter’s and Castel Sant’Angelo. The current minister is Dr Daniel Pratt Morris-Chapman, who is also the interim director of the Methodist Ecumenical Centre in Rome. Dr Pratt Morris-Chapman is an expert on the life and work of Saint John Henry Newman.
http://www.methodistchurchrome.com/index.htm
Piazza della Minerva, 42, 00186 Rome
Just a few minutes walk from the Anglican Centre is the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, one of the loveliest churches in Rome. It was erected over remains that were thought to be part of a temple to the goddess Minerva – hence the name. Santa Maria is the only example of a Gothic church in Rome: behind its Renaissance exterior is a Gothic interior with blue arches vaulting decorated with gilded stars.
Santa Maria Sopra Minerva was the titular church of the late Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, a friend of the Anglican Centre and a former co-chair of ARCIC. In 2006 the cardinal and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, officiated at Vespers at Santa Maria during the Archbishop’s visit to Rome.
https://www.santamariasopraminerva.it/en/
Piazza della Pilotta, 4, 00187 Rome
The Gregorian University, popularly known as “the Greg”, is one of the most important pontifical academic institutions in Rome. The Jesuit-run college is heir to the School of Grammar and Christian Doctrine opened in Rome in 1551 by St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. Generations of seminarians have studied at the Greg as part of their training for the priesthood, but lay people also study there too. Courses offered include theology, philosophy, canon law, church history, spirituality, psychology and social sciences. The Greg is also known as a centre for studies in Judaism and interreligious dialogue.
https://www.unigre.it/en/university/
Via Nazionale, 16a, 00184 Rome
St Paul’s Within The Walls is also known as the American Church in Rome, and was the first purpose-built Protestant church in the Eternal City. The expatriate Episcopal community of Rome commissioned the church which was inaugurated in 1876 and completed in 1880. St Paul’s is part of the Episcopal Church and the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe. In the 1980s the church’s crypt began to be used by refugees, leading to the founding of the Joel Nafuma Centre. The Centre provides clothing, breakfast, advice and language, literacy and computing classes. The majority of those visiting the centre have fled political and religious persecution and have often arrived in Europe after being exploited by traffickers.
St Paul’s has four fine mosaics designed by the Pre-Raphaelite artists Edward Burne-Jones: The Annunciation, The Tree of Life, Christ Enthroned in the Heavelny Jerusalem and The Earthly Paradise or The Church Militant. Christ Enthroned in the Heavenly Jerusalem, set in the semi-dome of the apse, shows Christ surrounded by archangels, with one empty space, vacated by Lucifer.
https://www.stpaulsrome.it/