Archiepiscopal Chapel

Visitors enter the chapel through the Archiepiscopal Museum because it was built as a room inside the residence of the head of the Ravenna church. No street entrance or space for a large congregation was intended here: the bishop and his closest clergy were meant to pray and celebrate services here.

At the end of the fifth century, they were led by Peter II, bishop of Ravenna and defender of the Nicene Creed. He took the see shortly after the city passed to Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths. The king and his court professed Arianism: Arians considered the Son like the Father, but not equal to him in divine nature. For Peter, the equality of the Father and the Son was the foundation of faith.

The chapel was not a refuge from open persecution. Peter cooperated with Theodoric, his signature appeared on royal court documents, and for a long time the king allowed both communities to have their own bishops and churches. Peter had to preserve those relations while also keeping his own teaching from dissolving into the court's faith. He ordered a small cruciform prayer room added to the bishop's house and dedicated it to Christ.

The dispute was transferred into mosaic. Above the exit, Christ is depicted as a young warrior: in purple clothing, with a cross on his shoulder and an open Gospel bearing the words, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” His feet stand on a lion and a snake. These animals are taken from a psalm and signify defeated evil; to regard them as portraits of Theodoric and his priests would be a stretch. The response to the Arians lies elsewhere: Christ presides over the entire composition, angels hold his monogram, and apostles and martyrs stand around him. It is precisely this insistence that scholars consider a polemic against the faith of the royal court.

Peter also left his own monogram among the mosaics, placing it below Christ's sign. Thus later bishops entering here for services saw who had arranged their prayer room and to whom its founder had subordinated his name. Of all the Nicene sanctuaries created in Ravenna under Theodoric, only this one survives.

The name of Saint Andrew appeared later. After the Byzantine conquest, Bishop Maximian, already familiar from Saint Vitalis, brought relics of the apostle to Ravenna from Constantinople; the chapel's new dedication was associated with their arrival around the middle of the sixth century. Above all, the name remains here from that episode. “Archiepiscopal” says whom this room served, “Chapel of Saint Andrew” whom it was later dedicated to, while above the exit Christ the warrior from Peter II's original design still stands.