The procession of virgins
Twenty-two virgins walking towards the altar along the wall.
Georges Jansoone — Public domain · bradhostetler — CC BY 2.0 · bradhostetler — CC BY 2.0 · bradhostetler — CC BY 2.0
**Two bands of mosaic running the length of the church — a procession of saints and virgins towards the altar — with human hands left behind where figures were cut out** — in central Ravenna. **Theodoric the Goth** built it around **504** as his palace church — **and he was an Arian**, holding a Christian doctrine the Council of Nicaea had rejected. ⚠ **Then Ravenna returned to the Byzantines in 540, the church was reconciled to orthodoxy — and its mosaics were purged**: **the images of Theodoric and his court were removed** and replaced with curtains and empty space. ⚠ **The purge was not complete**: **white human hands remain attached to the palace columns** — **the hands of people whose bodies were erased**. **You can see them plainly.** ✅ **The two bands today**: a **procession of twenty-two virgins** issuing from Classe, and **twenty-six martyrs**.
Twenty-two virgins walking towards the altar along the wall.
White hands left over from figures erased in the purge.
A panel showing the ancient harbour with its ships and walls.
Via di Roma 53, 48121 Ravenna, Italy
**A theological dispute over Christ's nature that ended with one side declared heresy — and its traces scraped off the walls.** ✅ **The dispute**: in the 4th century **the Alexandrian priest Arius** taught that **Christ was created by the Father and not co-eternal with him** — that is, **lesser than the Father in substance**. ⚠ **Others held** that the Son was **of the same substance as the Father and equally eternal**. ✅ **The resolution**: **the Council of Nicaea in 325** and then **Constantinople in 381** condemned Arianism **and established the Nicene Creed** — **making Arianism formally a heresy**. ⚠ **But it did not disappear**: **the Gothic peoples adopted it** — among them **Theodoric**, who ruled Italy from Ravenna. **So he built his churches to his own confession.** ✅ **What happened after 540**: **Justinian reconquered Italy**, **the Arian churches were reconciled to orthodoxy**, ⚠ **and everything in their mosaics referring to Theodoric and his court was removed** — **their figures, and probably inscriptions**. ✅ **The surviving evidence**: **the hands on the columns** — **they cut out the bodies and forgot the hands**. ⚠ **An early and vivid instance of political erasure of memory**, and you see it on the wall today.
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