Tarragona sets off “The route of the first Christians of Tàrraco”

Tarragona. Costa Dorada. 17 October 2013. Tarragona. 8 October 2013
The Patronat of Tourism of Tarragona, the area of Heritage of the City Council, the Archbishopric and the Generalitat presented recently The route of the first Christians of Tàrraco, an initiative that wants to put in value the different equipments at museums and monuments that save a relation with the paleochristian past  of the city. It is necessary to take into account that the archaeologic heritage of Tàrraco is, in its group, the most important of the Iberian Peninsula.

In this way, more than a year has gone by outlining this route with the participation of the Museum of History of Tarragona, the Archaeologic National Museum of Tarragona, the Church Museum of Tarragona, the Biblical Museum ofTarragona, the Centre Tarraconense, The Seminar and the Central Park. The works have been coordinated by the Municipal  Tourism office. To the act of presentation announced the brochure and the card of the route, as well as the signals of the route.

The route is conceived as a possibility to guide the visitor through contents of historical character, archaeologic and artistic features, with the purpose to make the comprehensible the birth and development of the Christianity in Tarragona. This achieves the chronological period since the arrival of the Christianity to the city for the teaching of the bible by Pau of Tarsus, as the tradition (s. i dC), until the moment of the araboberber invasion, at the beginning of the 8th century. It is necessary to remember that the Church of Tarragona was of the first Christian community of the Iberian Peninsula. It is said by the tradition, and also aimed by historians, that Saint Pau preached in Tàrraco and left ahead of the Christian community his successors, that over time would become bishops. The first references, however, date of the 3rd century and are the Acts of the Martyrdom of the bishop Fructuós and the deacons Auguri and Eulogi.

The monuments and equipments at museums that integrate the route are: the Chapel of Saint Pau (Centre Tarraconense The Seminar), the Cathedral and the Church Museum of Tarragona, the Biblical Museum of Tarragona, the Amphitheatre of Tarragona (Museum of History of Tarragona), the Forum of the Cologne (Museum of History of Tarragona), the archaeologic Group of the Central Park, the Necròpolis Paleocristiana (Archaeologic National Museum of Tarragona) and the archaeologic Group of Centcelles (Archaeologic National Museum of Tarragona).

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