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Across the centuries, Church crypts — from Roman catacombs to American cathedrals — testify that death is not the end but the beginning of eternal life.
In the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in downtown Cleveland, a chapel adjoins the north transept. There’s a wrought-iron gate with Requiescant in Pace fashioned above the entrance. It’s the cathedral’s burial crypt, containing the tombs of the deceased bishops of Cleveland.
While a “crypt” implies a place under or below a structure, Cleveland’s cathedral burial chamber on the ground floor, named the Resurrection Chapel, reflects that definition as well as the tradition of burial crypts throughout the history of Christianity. It is significant that figures of both St. Peter and St. Paul are prominent on the Resurrection Chapel’s upper half of the north wall, as both martyrs of the early Church were buried in crypts: St. Peter below the altar in the basilica that bears his name, and St. Paul, buried under what is now the papal altar of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
“Every ordinary, that is, a bishop of a diocese, is a member of that diocese and has a right to be buried in the cathedral crypt,” Bishop Roger Gries, retired auxiliary bishop of Cleveland, explained to the Register.
A contemporary example of a burial crypt is below the apse of one of the most famous churches in the world, Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia, which began construction on the feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 1882, and is set to be completed in 2026. The visionary behind the mammoth basilica, Catalan architect Venerable Antoni Gaudí, is buried in the Sagrada Familia Crypt. The crypt, completed in 1889, is the oldest part of the basilica.
Continued below.
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In the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in downtown Cleveland, a chapel adjoins the north transept. There’s a wrought-iron gate with Requiescant in Pace fashioned above the entrance. It’s the cathedral’s burial crypt, containing the tombs of the deceased bishops of Cleveland.
While a “crypt” implies a place under or below a structure, Cleveland’s cathedral burial chamber on the ground floor, named the Resurrection Chapel, reflects that definition as well as the tradition of burial crypts throughout the history of Christianity. It is significant that figures of both St. Peter and St. Paul are prominent on the Resurrection Chapel’s upper half of the north wall, as both martyrs of the early Church were buried in crypts: St. Peter below the altar in the basilica that bears his name, and St. Paul, buried under what is now the papal altar of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
“Every ordinary, that is, a bishop of a diocese, is a member of that diocese and has a right to be buried in the cathedral crypt,” Bishop Roger Gries, retired auxiliary bishop of Cleveland, explained to the Register.
A contemporary example of a burial crypt is below the apse of one of the most famous churches in the world, Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia, which began construction on the feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 1882, and is set to be completed in 2026. The visionary behind the mammoth basilica, Catalan architect Venerable Antoni Gaudí, is buried in the Sagrada Familia Crypt. The crypt, completed in 1889, is the oldest part of the basilica.
Continued below.
Why Catholics Are Being Buried in Churches Again
Across the centuries, Church crypts — from Roman catacombs to American cathedrals — testify that death is not the end but the beginning of eternal life.
