Gesù di Nazareth, Roma

Gesù di Nazareth is the parish church here in Verderocca, within Rome’s Collatino district, on Via Igino Giordani. Its compact modern form was created during the late nineteen eighties from a design by Angelo Polesello. The parish itself began earlier, in the early nineteen eighties, and its inaugural priest was Don Andrea Santoro, who was murdered in Turkey in the mid two thousands.

Pope John Paul the Second came here in the early nineteen nineties. Inside, the plan turns the building into a shared space: the doorway occupies a corner and the altar faces it across the room, so the congregation can see the liturgy from throughout the church. Modern icons follow ancient rules of depiction. The raised main altar rests on rough stonework, while a many-hued stained-glass window forms the setting behind the sanctuary.