Santa Passera, Medieval church in Portuense, Rome, Italy

Santa Passera is a church complex of three stacked levels: a 14th-century upper church with a single nave, wooden ceiling and semicircular presbytery, built over a Roman mausoleum whose masonry is still visible on the left exterior. Below are a fifth-century brick oratory of four connecting rooms and a narrow underground crypt datable to the late 2nd or early 3rd century.

The church was built in the early 5th century on the site where the relics of Saints Cyrus and John were landed from Egypt. In the 11th century it belonged to the monastery of Santa Maria in Via Lata, and documents of the 11th–13th centuries call it Sancti Abbacyri or Sancti Cyri et Iohannis. In the 14th century it was completely rebuilt and raised, and the name Santa Pacera or Passera replaced Abbaciro.

The interior walls show traces of medieval frescoes that reveal how people here once prayed and expressed their faith in past times. You can still see today how simple and direct these religious images were.

The church stands in the vicolo omonimo, between via Magliana and the right bank of the Tiber, facing San Paolo fuori le Mura across the river bend. The complex has three stacked levels: the 14th-century church is reached by a double stair to a raised terrace, while the 5th-century oratory lies below, entered from an external door, and a narrow stair leads down to the buried crypt.

No saint named Passera ever existed. The name is a popular corruption of Abbas Cyrus ("Father Cyrus"), passing through Abbaciro, Appaciro, Appacero, Pacero and Pacera; a 1317 document already records the form S. Pacera. Popular tradition also confused the invented saint with Saint Praxedes and celebrated her feast on 21 July.