Two branches of Russian Orthdoxy make up.

In Rome, a "Feast of Peoples."

The 16th "Feast of Peoples" will be held in the square of St. John Lateran in Rome on Sunday, May 20. The initiative has been organized by the Scalabrinian Missionary Fathers in collaboration with Caritas and with the Vicariate of Rome’s office for immigrants.

With the theme chosen for this year’s event – "a home far from home" – the organizers wish to explore the level of acceptance and integration of immigrants in the city community, at the same time recalling the image of the Church as an open and welcoming home beyond all limits and frontiers. The initiative also has the support of the Rome city and provincial authorities.

According to a communique published by the Vicariate of Rome, the day will begin at 9 a.m. with the opening of stalls run by various communities and a series of shows for children. At 10 a.m. a roundtable meeting will be held on the theme "the participation of foreigners in the economic, political, social and cultural life of the city."

At midday in the basilica of St. John Lateran Msgr. Mauro Parmeggiani, secretary general of the Vicariate, will celebrate a Mass during which 30 of the ethnic communities present in Rome will animate the liturgy. At 1.30 p.m. there will be a tasting of 23 typical dishes and, beginning at 3 p.m., folkloric demonstrations including 20 dance shows.

Rome Antiquities Watch:

Digging: Trying to get a subway line through the center – trying to dig under the lowest levels of ruins, but creating stops is turning out to be a problem.

Crumbling The latest on the permanent problem

Finding: Pleasure Gardens of Lucullus

Mosaics from the fabled Gardens of Lucullus, one of the pioneering influences on gardening, have been brought to light after 2,000 years by archaeologists in Rome.

The vast terraced gardens, or Horti, covered what is now the built-up area above the Spanish Steps. The first known attempt in the West to “tame nature” through landscaping, the gardens were laid out around a patrician villa in the middle of the 1st century BC by Lucius Licinius Lucullus, one of Ancient Rome’s most celebrated generals, after he retired in disillusion from war and politics.

They became a benchmark for all Roman pleasure gardens, and were taken over and developed by Roman emperors. The 1st-century mosaics decorated the nymphaeum, an artificial grotto with water features. One depicts a corpulent cupid riding a dolphin and another a wolf’s head in green and gold.

They were found nine metres (30ft) below street level during renovation work on the Hertzian Library (Biblioteca Hertziana), the German art history institute near the Spanish Steps run by the Max Planck Society.