Christians have a slightly different travel taste than others, and it is said that every visitor to Naples wants to see Pompeii in the Vesuvius Ruins Park, but I came to Naples mainly for salerno Cathedral and secondarily for the Virgil Cemetery. A 50+50-minute drive from Naples is Salerno, where the Salerno Cathedral is right in the heart of this quiet town by the sea. Buried here is the body of matthew, the apostle Matthew, the author of the Gospel of Matthew. According to Eusebius's "History of the Church", after the resurrection of Christ, Matthew went to Ethiopia to preach the gospel and establish a church, so that many people were converted to The Lord. When Matthew was martyred in Ethiopia around 60 AD, he was pierced to the ground by a spear and subsequently beheaded.
According to artifacts and websites of salerno Cathedral, the date of Matthew's crucifixion is uncertain, but Catholic martyrdom scholars usually refer to September 21 as Matthew's martyrdom day. Soon after, Matthew's body was transferred by disciples to Salerno for hiding, and was later discovered in the 5th century AD. By 954, Salerno was guarding the body of St. Matthew, but due to the tragic conditions of the time, it was carefully hidden so that it was briefly forgotten. In 1080 the Salerno Cathedral was completed and consecrated by Pope Gregory VII. The pope's letter of 18 September 1080 to Alfano I, then Archbishop of Salerno, congratulated him on the discovery of the body of St. Matthew, an impeccable historical document.
Reading the history of the Church a few years ago, Gregory VII was impressed, and he sent Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and Henry IV went to Canossa disguised as a confessor, dressed in the burlap cloth of the confessor, and stood barefoot in the snow and ice for three days, and Canossa's door was finally opened for him. Henry IV, who had been pardoned, soon gathered an army to attack Rome and expel the Pope, who first fled to Salerno and died in 1085 in the city of Salerno on his way south. After his death, he hid in the Cathedral of Salerno. This is the famous "going to Canossa" in the history of the church.
Built on the ruins of an ancient Roman temple, salerno Cathedral is a very unique church in both Byzantine and Roman styles. But the church where the apostles are buried seems unknown, and tourists are sparsely visited, so you can't help but feel sentimental, and how much time has changed here in a thousand years.
