Titulars of the Churches

TITULARS OF THE CHURCHES. - Official designation assigned to a church or an oratory.

I. PRESENT PRACTICE

Every church, whether consecrated or solemnly blessed, every public or semi-public oratory, every fixed altar, must have a t., that is, a title, which may be a saint, an angel, a divine person, or a mystery of Christ or of the Madonna. In this regard canon 1168 of the CIC establishes the following: § 1 a title once assigned cannot be changed; § 2 the feast of the titular must be celebrated every year; § 3 a blessed cannot be chosen as titular without a special apostolic indult.

The title is established, in general, by the consecrating bishop, but also on the proposal of the community or of the person who erects the church, at least before the consecration. Both the Roman Pontificale and the Rituale, in describing the rite of the laying of the first stone, have in the principal prayer a place for the inscription of the patron saint's t.; in the solemn consecration, moreover, the same name must also be inserted in the litany of the saints; and in the document to be sealed in the altar, the title of the church must also be indicated (Pont. Rom., De ben. et impos. primae lapidis; Rit. Rom., Tit. IX, n. 16, n. 17).

Some decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Rites further specify that the patron saint t. should be a saint entered either in the Roman Martyrology, or at least in the corresponding proper calendar (diocesan or religious).

The t. may also be the Madonna, under one of her particular titles, but liturgically approved, such as, for example, Mater gratiae, Auxilium christianorum, Virgo admirabilis, etc., or under one of her particular mysteries (Immaculate Conception, Nativity, Assumption, Sorrows, etc.). The person of Christ may be so under liturgically approved titles such as, for example, Savior (the most ancient and venerable christological title in use), Redeemer, Christ the King, Heart of Jesus, Most Holy Sacrament, Nativity of the Lord, Transfiguration, etc.). As for the other divine persons, the Holy Spirit may also be a t.; on the other hand, it is not customary to give the Father as a title, but rather the Most Holy Trinity.

As for the saints of the Old Testament, in the Middle Ages it was not rare for Job, Daniel, David, Simeon the prophet (the Simeon of the Gospel who prophesied to Mary Most Holy: her sorrows), and, very often, John the Baptist, and later also Anne and Joachim, to be chosen as t. The latter may still today be given as titles, because of their connection with the New Testament.

A title, once imposed on a consecrated church or altar, cannot be changed except by pontifical indult; however, another t. may be added, always by pontifical indult, which will then be celebrated liturgically with equal right. Any profanation of the church does not remove the title, which is annulled only by complete destruction or formal desecration, or adaptation to profane use. If, moreover, the church, or the building itself, or a new reconstruction on the site, is reopened, the old title automatically revives. It is not lawful, on such an occasion, to change the title or add another, without an express apostolic indult. If, furthermore, a t. has more than one feast in the calendar, as for example, St. Michael, St. John the Baptist, the Madonna, Christ, then at the act of consecration the date to be celebrated as the titular feast must be indicated. The titular feast, on the other hand, of all churches of Christ the Savior is that of the Transfiguration (6 Aug.), and of the Madonna, when not otherwise established, her Assumption (15 Aug.).

The titular feast of a church is of the first class with a common octave, to be celebrated by the clergy actually assigned to it; otherwise only the solemn Mass is celebrated.

It should be noted that until the decrees of Pius X in 1911-13 the technical term "t. of the church" was not so precise; more commonly the patron saints t. were given the name of "patrons" of the church, and people liked to speak of the patronal feast, or patronage; but when the t. was not a saint (or an angel or the Madonna), then the designation title or t. was preferred, since titular mysteries could not be considered as "patrons." Today, therefore, in the strict technical liturgical sense, the word "patron" is reserved for the "patroni loci" and the particular "patronages" of saints (v. PATRONO).

II. HISTORY

The use of holy titulars, or rather of the titulars of churches, is very ancient and derives from the civil (pagan) custom of designating houses and the various landed properties with the name of the owner or protector. The title guaranteed protection of the property; St. Augustine, in the Enarrationes in psalmos (In ps., XXI, enarr., II, n. 31: PL 36, 180) expressly relates how some, in order to give greater importance to their house, placed it under the title of another more powerful personage; just as the Donatists, instead of the name of Christ, preferred the name of Donatus. In any case, at least in Rome, and in all likelihood elsewhere too, the first houses of the Church (Christian community) bore the title of the donor or founder. This held also for the great basilicas: Constantinian, Liberian, Sessorian; certain denominations, however, came also, from the very beginning, either from the locality or from a particular sacred element: Holy Cross in Jerusalem, St. Mary ad praesepe, St. John at the Font, etc. It is certain that during the era of the great reconstructions of the Roman parish churches (the "tituli" in the strict sense), that is, in the 4th and 5th centuries, there arose the custom of dedicating the churches themselves to a saint as titular or protector and, as it were, owner of the church, but at the time the old original title often remained in existence as well: St. Lawrence in Damaso, that is, the church of St. Lawrence, built on the old title founded by Damasus; St. Lawrence in Lucina, that is, the church of St. Lawrence built on the previous title of the matron Lucina, etc. As churches multiplied, they simply took their title from the saint in whose honor they were built and dedicated; one cannot, however, deny that there also played a part the fact that in the cemetery churches a particular saint was venerated from the very beginning, and it was he who gave the church its name. Be that as it may, from the 6th century canonical legislation begins to sanction the use of saints as titulars of churches, in the form then practiced of imposing no longer the name of the founder or donor, but that of a saint or a mystery. In the Middle Ages, given the idea of feudalism and protectorship, the titular saint was held in the greatest veneration and titular feasts became also popular and civil feasts of great importance, occasions for markets and public gatherings. Oblations of every kind offered to the church were presented to the patron, that is, the titular of the church, in order to place oneself under his particular protection: violations of ecclesiastical property were regarded as injuries inflicted directly upon the titular saint.

In more recent times, studies and investigations concerning the geographical distribution and the historical age of the various titulars of churches are acquiring ever greater importance; this study is sometimes integrated and perfected by including, besides the titulars, also the true local sacred place-names. Moreover, the investigations are sometimes directed rather toward the cultural aspect in general, folklore, the history of ecclesiastical property, the history of the cult of the various saints, the diffusion of their relics, etc.: in short, sanctoral geography (so to speak) is increasingly proving to be a very rich source for ecclesiastical and cultural history, especially of antiquity and the Middle Ages.

In this way one can reconstruct the periods of particular veneration of certain saints (the example of St. Nicholas, studied in depth by Meisen [see op. cit., in bibl.], who from the 11th century onward becomes extraordinarily popular, as can be seen precisely from the chronological and topographical diffusion of his churches). St. James the Greater, as patron of pilgrims and travelers, often has his churches along the great roads frequented by these, at certain difficult points (mountain passes); churches of St. Michael and of St. John the Baptist, moreover universally widespread and ab antiquo, have also benefited from the veneration of the Archangel as patron of the dead, and of the Baptist as patron of the many baptisteries. Certain saints indicate the center of the irradiation of Christianity: Hermagoras of Aquileia, Stephen of Passau as far as Hungary, similarly Rupert and Peter of Salzburg, Wolfgang of Regensburg; Martin often indicates Frankish missionaries. George, patron of knights, often appears as patron in churches founded by nobles, or under noble patronage; certain titular saints reveal the foundation or belonging of the church to medieval brotherhoods of trades (Homobonus: tailors; Eligius: goldsmiths; Lazarus: leper houses; Catherine was patroness of various trades, etc.). A certain attention is deserved by the titular saint Lawrence, because not infrequently he reveals a still paleochristian foundation, when the said saint, greatly venerated in Rome, had a particularly extensive cult. Quite noteworthy is the fact that many churches dedicated to the Madonna have the title of the Assumption, and this from very ancient times (at times as far back as the 5th and 6th centuries). A second fruitful phase of this title occurs in the full Middle Ages, owing above all to the Cistercians, who by rule dedicated all their churches to the Madonna. In short, the vast field of titular saints has by now proved most fruitful under the most varied aspects, although the investigation requires a rigorous preparation and great experience, otherwise it can easily degenerate. Particular attention is deserved by certain titular saints who often, without foundation, have been believed to be successors or, rather, replacements of previous pagan divinities, whether of the classical world or of the Celtic, Germanic, Slavic world, etc.

Patron Saints of English Churches, London 1915; J. Dorn, Beiträge zur Patrozienforsch., in Arch. f. Kulturgesch., 13 (1917), pp. 9-40, 220-55 (very instructive); J. P. Kirsch, Die röm. Titelkirch. im Altertum, Paderborn 1918, pp. 3-4, 117 ff. (on the origin of the use of titular saints); J. Trier, Patrozienforsch. u. Kulturgeograph., in Hist. Zeitschr., 134 (1926), pp. 329-49 (very instructive); H. Fink, Die Kirchenpatroz. Tirol, Passau 1928; E. Hennecke, Patrozienforsch., in Die Rel. in Gesch. u. Gegenz., IV, Tübingen 1930, coll. 1010-11 (with bibl.); K. Meisen, Nikolaushult u. Nik. brauch, Münster 1931; K. Puchner, Patrozienforsch. u. Eigenkirchenwesen, Munich 1932 (diss.); M. G. Lavergne, La toponymie, in V. Carrière, Introd. aux études d'hist. ecclés. locale, II, Paris 1934, pp. 497-552 (very practical and instructive); E. Klebel, Patrozien im deutsch. Südosten, Klagenfurt 1935 (excellent for the influence of the Salzburg mission); F. Hatheyer, Die Pfarrpatroz. der Diözesen Österreichs, in Zeitschr. f. hath. Theol., 72 (1950), pp. 213-22; G. Imbrighi, Il toponimo « San Pietro » nella regione italiana, Vatican City 1953; J. B. Lehner, Patron, in LThK, VIII, coll. 1-3 (with particular regard to the Germanic regions).

Giuseppe Löw