Santi Sergio E Bacco - 17th Century

17th Century

When the church of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in the Roman Forum was suppressed as a cardinal deaconry in 1587 and the church demolished, it was succeeded by a renovated Sts. Sergius and Bacchus in Monti. In 1622 it was entrusted by Pope Gregory XV (1621–23) to the Minim Friars of St. Francis of Paola who soon left it when they moved to another church near San Pietro in Vincoli. The church was renovated under Pope Urban VIII (1623–44), through the patronage of his younger brother, Capuchin Cardinal Antonio Marcello Barberini (1569-1646, cardinal from 1624). Above the travertine doorway, the only part of the seventeenth century façade surviving today, is an inscription that records this work:

FECIT ANTONIUS BARBERINI CARDINALIS SANCTI ONOPHRII
IN HONOREM SS. SERGII ET BACCHI

Cardinal Antonio Barberini, titular of Sant'Onofrio al Gianicolo,
in honor of Saints Sergius and Bacchus did this work.

In 1641, Urban VIII granted the church to monks of the Order of Saint Basil the Great, the Ruthenian Monks of St. Basil as they were known, who established a college there. It has been a church of the Byzantine rite associated with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church ever since.