Tales From Her Crypt

A basement crypt at the Calvary Cemetery serves as the most current residence of St. Vibiana, patroness of the Los Angeles Archdiocese. From a Roman catacomb to her eponymous 19th century cathedral to an East L.A. mausoleum, it’s been an exhausting journey.

In 1853, excavation workers found Vibiana’s remains in Rome, along with a marble slab inscribed, “O the innocent and pure soul of Vibiana.” The church determined she was 1,500 years old, had died a violent death for her faith and declared her a virgin martyr and saint. Los Angeles petitioned to have her shipped to California. After surviving a rough Atlantic crossing and a fire in Santa Barbara, Vibiana arrived, and in 1876, a procession led by a Mexican band took her to the high altar of her new grand cathedral at 2nd and Main streets.

Her remains, housed in a wax statue, were displayed in a glass tomb until 1976, when the building was remodeled and her reliquary upgraded to a white marble sarcophagus. In 1994, an earthquake damaged the building and the archdiocese moved out, leaving St. Vibiana a lonely tenant. In 1996, with Cardinal Roger M. Mahony supervising, a hearse picked up her remains and carted her, without fanfare, to a new temporary crypt at Calvary. Her exact location is secret.

Alas, when St. Vibiana moves in 2000, it will not be to a cathedral named for her. In her new home, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Temple and Hill streets, she will have come full circle, tucked away catacomb-like in the crypt’s chapel of St. Vibiana, underneath the main cathedral.