Where is St. Paul buried, and where is his head?

By Andrew McGilly, Founder of Bold Pilgrim · Updated 2026-10-05
Research draft · Human editorial review pending

St. Paul is buried under the papal altar of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, in a rough marble sarcophagus 2.55 m (8.4 ft) long that excavations uncovered in 2006 beneath a fourth-century slab inscribed PAVLO APOSTOLO MART. His head, by tradition, is kept with the head of St. Peter in silver reliquary busts at the top of the Gothic ciborium over the papal altar of St. John Lateran.

At St. Paul's the sarcophagus sits where Constantine built the first altar; a window in the confessio below the altar lets you see the slab, and the chains said to have bound Paul under house arrest are displayed beside it. The basilica is open every day 7:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. with free entry, Mass at 7:00, 10:00 and 5:00 p.m. on weekdays and 8:00, 10:00 and noon on Sundays, and confessions 10:00 a.m. to noon and 4:00 to 6:30 p.m. Metro B Basilica San Paolo is the stop.

At the Lateran the two heads are in busts placed high in the ciborium that Urban V commissioned in 1368; the original busts of 1370 were melted in 1797 to pay the indemnity to Napoleonic France, and the present silver busts date from the early nineteenth century. They are visible from the floor through a gilded grille and are not brought down for veneration. Pope Martin V chose to be buried directly beneath them.

The Church presents these as the relics of tradition, confirmed by continuous veneration and, for the tomb, by the 2006 excavation; it does not claim a scientific identification of the heads. For Peter's tomb and the other apostles, see where-are-the-tombs-of-the-apostles.

Where is St. Paul buried, and where is his head?

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