On this day, the Pantheon in Rome was consecrated to Saint Mary and the Martyrs by Pope Boniface IV. It is recorded that Pope Boniface asked the Byzantine Emperor Phocas “to order that in the old temple called the Pantheon, after the pagan filth was removed, a church should be made, to the holy virgin Mary and all the martyrs, so that the commemoration of the saints would take place henceforth where not gods but demons were formerly worshipped.” The building’s consecration as a church no doubt saved it from the abandonment, destruction, and the worst of the pillage that was the fate of the majority of ancient Rome’s buildings during the Early Middle Ages.
