San Giorgio al Velabro

San Giorgio in Velabro is a church in Rome, Italy, devoted to St. George.

The church is located in the ancient Roman Velabrum, near the Arch of Janus, in the rione of Ripa. Sited near the River Tiber, it is within a complex of Republican-era pagan temples associated with the port of Rome. The ancient Arcus Argentariorum is attached to the side of the church's façade.

San Giorgio in Velabro is the station church for the first Thursday in Lent.

The first religious building attested in the place of the current basilica is a diaconia, funded by Pope Gregory the Great.

The current church was built during the 7th century, possibly by Pope Leo II, who dedicated it to Saint Sebastian. A 482 inscription in the catacombs of St. Callixtus probably refers of a church in the same zone. Its plan is irregular, indeed slightly trapezoidal, as a result of the frequent additions to the building. As can be seen from the lower photograph, the interior columns are almost randomly arranged having been taken from sundry Roman temples.

The church was inside the Greek quarter of Rome, where Greek-speaking merchants, civil and military officers and monks of the Byzantine Empire lived — the nearby Santa Maria in Cosmedin, for example, was known as in Schola Graeca at the time. Pope Zachary (741-752), who was of Greek origin, moved the relic of St. George to here from Cappadocia, so that this saint had a church dedicated in the West well before the spreading of his worship with the return of the Crusaders from the East.

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Wikipedia