Sanctuary of the Holy Savior (Castelchiodato, Rome) – Thresholds

From the road that connects Castelchiodato to both Mentana and Monterotondo, at the end of a rural road, one can reach a small church dedicated to the Holy Savior. The exact date of its construction is not known but the church already existed in 1500, where an ancient hermitage / convent of the Basilian monks was located. The small church has a gabled profile with a small bell tower and a single entrance covered by a two-pitched concrete structure, built in the late 1960s. The interior, with a single nave with a semicircular apse, is plastered and simply painted; the internal roof is made up of two cross vaults while the external roof is made up of a gable roof. At the center of the presbytery wall there is a wall altar, on top of which is a shrine containing a recently made image representing the icon of the Holy Savior. The original of the icon is placed in the parish church of the Trasfigurazione di Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo in Castelchiodato.

The origin of the 1^st June Feast

The feast of the Holy Savior has its roots in the past. The legend tells of some laborers from Monterotondo, who were plowing fields in Castelchiodato. The ploughshare suddenly got stuck and the oxen, for the effort, bent on their legs until they almost kneeled on the ground, right at the point where a box emerged from the open furrow. This box then revealed, inside, a wooden table with the Holy Savior. This wooden altarpiece in bas-relief showed Jesus enthroned, flanked by Mary Magdalene in the act of washing his feet and by Mary of Bethany that perfumes his head, and all this represents the fulcrum and reason for celebrating the feast. According to the legend, after the discovery of the panel the oxen were directed towards Monterotondo; a sudden and terrible bad weather began, and the animals refused to continue and decided, on the contrary, to return to Castelchiodato, while the weather was calm again. Thus, since then the precious altarpiece found its home in the village.