This feast brings to mind the mission of teacher and pastor conferred by Christ on Peter, and continued in an unbroken line down to the present Pope. We celebrate the unity of the Church, founded upon the Apostle, and renew our assent to the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, extended both to truths which are solemnly defined ex cathedra, and to all the acts of the ordinary magisterium.

      Since early times, the Roman Church has had a special commemoration of the primatial authority of St. Peter. As witness one of the most renowned of the Apostolic Fathers, the Roman See has always held a peculiar place in the affection and obedience of orthodox believers because of its "presiding in love" and service over all the Churches of God.

      The feast commemorates the establishment of the See of Rome by Saint Peter the Apostle. A second feast is known to have taken place on February 22, traditionally the day when Peter bore witness, by the Sea of Tiberias, to the Divinity of Christ and was again appointed by Christ to be the Rock of His Church, and the day Peter was chosen first pope, but this was in Antioch, not Rome. The celebration was held in Vatican Basilica, and in a cemetery on the Via Salaria. At each place a chair (cathedra) was venerated which the Apostle had used while presiding at Mass.

      One of the chairs is referred to about 600 by an Abbot Johannes who had been commissioned by Pope Gregory the Great to collect in oil from the lamps which burned at the graves of the Roman martyrs.