Chair of St Peter: Feast, Meaning, Prayer and Bernini

The Chair of St Peter is the feast on which the Church honours the authority that Christ gave to St Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, to teach and govern the whole Church, an authority that lives on in his successors, the Roman Pontiffs. In the calendar of 1962 it is kept on 22 February, a feast of the second class in white vestments, with a commemoration of St Paul. The name also belongs to a relic: the ancient wooden chair enshrined by Bernini in the apse of St Peter's Basilica. Below are the meaning of the feast, its history, its prayers in Latin and English, and the monument of the Cathedra Petri.

What is the Chair of St Peter?

A bishop's chair, in Latin cathedra, is the seat from which he teaches his people; it is why the church where it stands is called a cathedral. To speak of the "Chair of Peter" is to speak of the office of teaching and ruling that Peter received from Christ and that passes to each Bishop of Rome.

The Church gives the reason for the feast in a sermon read at Matins in the Breviary, attributed to St Augustine: "The institution of today's solemnity received from our forefathers the name of the Chair, because Peter, the first of the Apostles, is said to have taken today the chair of his episcopate. Rightly then do the churches honour the birthday of that see which the Apostle took up for the salvation of the churches, as the Lord said: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church." The feast does not honour a piece of furniture, then, but the day on which Peter began to exercise his office as bishop, and the office itself.

Thou art Peter: the foundation of the feast

The Gospel of the feast is the promise made to Peter at Caesarea Philippi, in the Douay-Rheims version:

"Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answering said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven." (St Matthew xvi. 16-19)

To this promise the Gospels add the prayer of Christ for Peter, "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren" (St Luke xxii. 32), and the charge given by the risen Lord on the shore of the lake: "Feed my lambs... Feed my sheep" (St John xxi. 15-17). The meaning of "thou art Peter" is studied at length in our page Thou Art Peter: Christ, the Rock, and the Founding of the Church, and the life of the Apostle in our page on St Peter, the Apostle and first Pope.

St Leo the Great on the privilege of Peter

The lessons of the third nocturn give the homily of Pope St Leo the Great on this Gospel. Peter, he says, "is first in confessing the Lord who is first in apostolic dignity". The power of binding and loosing passed to the other Apostles as well, "but not without reason is that entrusted to one which is intimated to all. For this is entrusted to Peter singly, because the pattern of Peter is set before all the rulers of the Church." And he concludes: "The privilege of Peter therefore remains, wherever judgment is passed according to his equity."

The history of the feast: two Chairs, then one

The feast is very old. The Roman calendar of the year 354, the so-called Philocalian calendar, already marks on the eighth day before the Kalends of March, that is, 22 February, natale Petri de cathedra, "the birthday of Peter's Chair".

For centuries the Roman calendar kept two feasts of the Chair:

• 18 January, the Chair of St Peter at Rome (Cathedra S. Petri Romae), in memory of his see in the capital of the world;
• 22 February, the Chair of St Peter at Antioch (Cathedra S. Petri Antiochiae), in memory of the church of Antioch, which tradition holds that Peter governed before going to Rome. Antioch was the city where "the disciples were first named Christians" (Acts xi. 26), and St Leo, in the lessons that were read on 18 January, says to Peter: "thou hadst already founded the church of Antioch, where the dignity of the Christian name first arose."

What the rubrics of 1960 changed

The rubrics promulgated under John XXIII in 1960, which govern the Missal and Breviary of 1962, suppressed the feast of 18 January and gave the feast of 22 February the simple title of Chair of St Peter (In Cathedra S. Petri Apostoli), raising it to the second class. In the calendar of 1962, therefore, 18 January is the day of St Prisca, virgin and martyr, kept by a commemoration, and the whole mystery of Peter's Chair is celebrated once, on 22 February. The calendar of 1969 kept the feast on that day, with the rank of feast.

The suppressed feast of 18 January had been the starting point of the Chair of Unity Octave, the eight days of prayer for unity that end on the Conversion of St Paul; its story is told in our page on the Conversion of St Paul.

When is the feast of the Chair of St Peter?

The feast of the Chair of St Peter falls every year on 22 February. In the calendar of 1962 it is a feast of the second class, in white vestments, with the Gloria, the Creed and the Preface of the Apostles. Because the Church does not separate the two princes of the Apostles, the Mass adds a commemoration of St Paul, just as the Conversion of St Paul on 25 January adds one of St Peter. The whole year is set out in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962, and the saints of each day in our guide to the Catholic saints, listed by feast day.

The Epistle is the opening of the first Epistle of St Peter: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers dispersed..." (1 St Peter i. 1-7), and the Gospel is the promise of St Matthew xvi. 13-19 quoted above.

The prayer of the feast of the Chair of St Peter (Missal of 1962)

The commemoration of St Paul is inseparable: by the rubrics of 1960 (n. 110), his prayer is added to the collect of the day under a single conclusion, with no second Oremus between them.

Collect, 22 February, with the commemoration of St Paul

Deus, qui beáto Petro Apóstolo tuo, collátis clávibus regni cœléstis, ligándi atque solvéndi pontifícium tradidísti: concéde; ut, intercessiónis ejus auxílio, a peccatórum nostrórum néxibus liberémur. Deus, qui multitúdinem géntium beáti Pauli Apóstoli prædicatióne docuísti: da nobis, quǽsumus; ut, cujus commemoratiónem cólimus, ejus apud te patrocínia sentiámus. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

O God, who, giving to blessed Peter Thy Apostle the keys of the kingdom of heaven, didst confer on him the pontifical power of binding and loosing: grant that by the help of his intercession we may be set free from the bonds of our sins. O God, who didst teach the multitude of the Gentiles by the preaching of blessed Paul the Apostle: grant us, we beseech Thee, that we who keep his commemoration may feel the help of his patronage with Thee. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Secret

Ecclésiæ tuæ, quǽsumus, Dómine, preces et hóstias beáti Petri Apóstoli comméndet orátio: ut, quod pro illíus glória celebrámus, nobis prosit ad véniam. Per Dóminum nostrum.

May the prayer of blessed Peter the Apostle, we beseech Thee, O Lord, commend the prayers and offerings of Thy Church: that what we celebrate for his glory may avail us unto pardon. Through our Lord.

Postcommunion

Lætíficet nos, Dómine, munus oblátum: ut, sicut in Apóstolo tuo Petro te mirábilem prædicámus; sic per illum tuæ sumámus indulgéntiæ largitátem. Per Dóminum nostrum.

May the gift we have offered gladden us, O Lord: that as we proclaim Thee wonderful in Thine Apostle Peter, so through him we may receive the abundance of Thy pardon. Through our Lord.

The hymn of St Peter at Lauds

At Lauds of the feast the Breviary sings a short hymn to St Peter, whose first stanza may be said as a prayer to the Prince of the Apostles on any day:

Beáte Pastor, Petre, clemens áccipe
Voces precántum, criminúmque víncula
Verbo resólve, cui potéstas trádita
Aperíre terris cælum, apértum cláudere.

O blessed Shepherd Peter, mercifully receive
the voices of those who pray to thee, and by thy word
loose the bonds of our sins, thou to whom was given the power
to open heaven to the earth, and to close it once opened.

The Collect and this hymn ask the same grace: that the power of the keys, given to Peter for the forgiveness of sins, may set us free.

Bernini's Chair of St Peter (the Cathedra Petri)

Where is the Chair of St Peter?

At the far end of St Peter's Basilica in Rome, in the apse, above the altar of the Chair, stands the great monument of gilt bronze made by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Pope Alexander VII, between the 1650s and the 1660s. A bronze throne seems to float in the air, carried by four colossal statues of Doctors of the Church: St Ambrose and St Augustine for the Latin Church, St Athanasius and St John Chrysostom for the Greek Church. Above it, in a burst of golden rays and clouds of angels, an oval window shows the Dove of the Holy Spirit. The four Doctors holding up the Chair express the agreement of the Fathers of East and West with the teaching authority of Peter.

The relic inside the monument

Bernini's bronze throne is a reliquary: it encloses an ancient wooden chair long venerated as the chair of St Peter. Those who examined it in the nineteenth century, when it was exposed in 1867, described its oldest part as a plain oak chair, strengthened later with pieces of acacia wood and adorned with carved ivory panels, among them the labours of Hercules. The carving of an emperor on its back is held to be a portrait of Charles the Bald, grandson of Charlemagne, and the chair is commonly said to be a throne he gave to Pope John VIII in 875.

How old is the Chair of St Peter?

Its age is disputed. The ivories and the acacia reinforcements belong to the Carolingian age, the time of Charles the Bald; the plain oak frame was long venerated as the chair of Peter himself, while modern studies date the chair as a whole to the early Middle Ages. Its value lies in what it signifies, which is what the feast celebrates: not a seat of wood, but the office of Peter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the feast of the Chair of St Peter celebrate?

The authority to teach and govern the whole Church that Christ gave to St Peter and that his successors, the Bishops of Rome, inherit; in St Augustine's words read in the Breviary, the "birthday" of the see that Peter took up for the salvation of the churches.

Does the Pope sit on the Chair of St Peter?

Not on the relic, which is sealed inside Bernini's monument. The "Chair of Peter" the Pope occupies is his office. The Pope's cathedral, as Bishop of Rome, is the Archbasilica of St John Lateran, where his episcopal chair stands.

Why were there two feasts of the Chair of St Peter?

Because the Roman calendar honoured both the see of Antioch, which Peter governed according to tradition, on 22 February, and his see at Rome on 18 January. The rubrics of 1960 kept only one feast, on 22 February, with the simple title of Chair of St Peter.

What is the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter?

The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter is a structure created by the Holy See on 1 January 2012, under Benedict XVI's apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus of 4 November 2009, for groups of former Anglicans in the United States, later also in Canada, who have entered the Catholic Church; its seat is in Houston, Texas. It bears the name of the Chair of Peter, but it is a modern institution, not part of the feast or of the 1962 books.

Is the feast of the Chair of St Peter a holy day of obligation?

No. It is a feast of the second class in the calendar of 1962, not a day of obligation.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Roman Missal of 1962 with the Mass of the Chair of St Peter, the Breviary with the sermon of St Augustine and the homily of St Leo, and the traditional calendar, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version: St Matthew xvi. 13-19; St Luke xxii. 32; St John xxi. 15-17; Acts xi. 26; 1 St Peter i. 1-7. Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 22 February (Chair of St Peter, commemoration of St Paul). Roman Breviary, 22 February: St Augustine, Sermon 15 on the Saints; St Leo the Great, Sermon 3 on the anniversary of his elevation; hymn Beate Pastor, Petre; and the former office of 18 January (St Leo, Sermon 1 on Sts Peter and Paul).