Concordia Students Take Study Trip to Rome

This past May 2008, the Rev. Dr. Patrick Bayens, Professor of Religion at Concordia—New York, led a group of eight Concordia students on a study trip to Rome. Highlights of the trip, which emphasized Imperial Rome and early Christianity, included visits to the Vatican (St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel), the Roman Forum and Flavian Amphitheater (aka the Coliseum), the Pantheon, the Catacombs, and an excursion to Pompeii.

Particularly rewarding was the privilege of seeing great works of art in their original settings: Michelangelo’s Ceiling, Last Judgment, and Moses; no less than six works by Caravaggio; the wooden doors of Santa Sabina, with the earliest extant depiction of Christ’crucifixion, and the splendid mosaics of Santa Maria Maggiore, San Clemente, and sixteen other churches visited on the trip. Of course, there was also shopping, the piazzas, the fountains, and the food!