John the Evangelist for deliverance from so
great a peril, and vowing to build a church in his honour in Ravenna
if he would bring them to land. And immediately the winds and the
waves abated and the ship came safely to port.[2] It was in fulfilment
of her vow that Placidia built in Ravenna the Basilica of S. John the
Evangelist.
[Footnote 2: The invocation of S. John is curious, and we have not the
key to it. For though he was a fisherman, so was S. Peter for
instance. It is interesting, though not perhaps really significant, to
note that it is only S. John who notes in his Gospel (vi. 21) that,
when the Apostles saw Our Lord walking on the water in the great
storm, and had received Him into their ship, "immediately the ship was
at the land."]
The city of Ravenna at this time would seem to have been full of
churches. Its first bishop, S. Apollinaris, had been the friend of S.
Peter who, as it was believed, had appointed him to the see of
Ravenna. That was in the earliest days of the Christian Church. But we
find the tradition still living in the fourth century when Severus,
bishop of Ravenna, miraculously chosen to fill the see, sat in the
council of Sardica in 344 and refused to make any alteration in the
Nicene Creed.
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