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San Maurizio Martire is a 21st century parish church at Via del Poggio di Acilia 110, in the suburban zone of Acilia Nord on the Via del Mare.

The patron saint, St Maurice, was a solider martyr who gave his name to St Moritz in Switzerland and who features in the legend of the Theban Legion.

History

The parish was set up in 1978. In 1981 it started using the convent premises of the Suore Missionarie di San Carlo Borromeo Scalabriniane per i Migranti.

The parish then was entrusted to the Risurrezionisti or "Resurrectionists" in 2000, in preparation for the opening of a new church.

The permanent church was finished in 2001, to an enjoyable design which contrasts with the bleakness of the suburb. The architect was Costantino Ruggeri, with the collaboration of Enzo Capoferri and Cosimo Altomare.

Exterior

Layout

The church is an irregular tetrahedron, on the plan of an isosceles triangle. The frontage is a vertical equilateral triangle, and the other two triangular sides are scalene. There is no roof as such -the two sides meet at a ridge-line.

The site slopes away from the street, and this has been utilised by building the church on a ground-level crypt. The church itself stands away from the street, beyond a garden area

On the right side of the church is attached a flat-roofed ferial chapel on a trapezoidal plan, narrowing from front to back. This floats so as also to function as a canopy over an entrance to the crypt premises.

To the left of the church is a rather undistinguished flat-roofed two-storey block which contains the parish offices. This is attached to the church via an enclosed elevated walkway, supported on concrete columns and with its sides in glass.

Fabric

The three walls of the church are entirely clad in white limestone slabs, except for the fenestration.

The façade is a blank equilateral triangle, with an entrance having a shallow rectangular floating horizontal canopy. Above that is a very large circular window, with a cross motif in its fenestration created by two pairs of parallel bars at right angles separating the panes. There is a very narrow vertical strip window bisecting the façade above and below this window.

The ferial chapel walls are mostly made up of glass.

The left hand wall has two large fenestration features. At the bottom, over another entrance to the crypt, is a long shallow rectangular protrusion containing windows. Above this is a large skylight feature, created in the design by cutting a segment in the wall with its chord just below and parallel to the ridge-line, and rotating it outwards to give space to an arc of windows.

There is no campanile.

Interior

The interior is all in white, with the windows in clear glass. The floor is laid in small rectangular pale brown travertine limestone slabs, in a herringbone pattern.

The sanctuary is on a polished marble semi-circular platform, and all the sanctuary furniture (ambo, altar and seating for the ministers) is also in white marble blocks without any decoration.

Liturgy

Church

Mass is celebrated in the church (parish website, July 2018):

Weekdays 7:30, 18:00 (not Wednesdays, Saturdays or July and August);

Sundays and Solemnities 10:00, 11:30 (not July and August), 18:00 (19:30 July and August).

Cappella della Casa Madonna Assunta

The parish has one external public Mass centre, which is the chapel of the convent of Scalabriniane sisters at Via Monti di San Paolo 55. The sisters run a day-care centre here. The chapel has no architectural identity.

Mass is celebrated;

Weekdays 17:00 (18:00 on Saturdays during DST);

Sundays and Solemnities 8:30.

External links

Official diocesan web-page

Parish website

Info.roma web-page

Beweb web-page

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