Remnants of Sant'Euplio Church: A WWII Survivor and Its Ghostly Past

Once a place of worship in the Porta di Aci quarter of Catania, Sant'Euplio Church met its demise during World War II, leaving behind mere northern and western walls. The western wall now boasts 12 relief plaques featuring the Apostles, displaced from the Catania Monumental Cemetery and installed in 1978. Before its destruction, the church stood upon a paleo-Christian temple's grounds, and belonged to the Confraternity of Sant'Euplio, who bestowed it upon the Capuchin Friars in 1598, and later the Minor Franciscan Friars in 1606.

The church managed to endure the 1693 earthquake but was eventually overpowered during an air raid in 1943. A new Sant'Euplio Church was inaugurated in 1964 south of Piazza Maria Montessori, designed by the architect Giacomo Leone. In reference to the Ittar's blueprint, along with minor remains and Giuseppe Rasà Napoli's pre-1943 description, one can speculate the church's pre-destruction design. The main altar was adorned with frescoes of 'saints Euplio and Antonio in front of the throne of Mary with a choir of angels, the four Evangelists, the Apotheosis of Saint Euplio, the sermon of the same saint.

There was a Roman-era passageway at the entrance, leading to underground rooms, perhaps a location for St. Euplio's imprisonment as per tradition. Some scholars suggest the underground room may have served as a tomb and a place of late-antique worship. annually, on the Saint Euplio's martyrdom date, August 12, access to the underground room is granted for religious rites.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons