The facade of the church of San Pietro, demolished after the landslide of 1956, still stands in the square of the same name, and its Maiella stone portal almost seems to open a window onto the sea.
The ancient door of San Pietro is not only a wonderful postcard view, but still retains a strong religious meaning for the people of Vasto, because anyone who crosses it on the third Sunday of January obtains the remission of all their sins.
This privilege, called “Vastesi Jubilee”, and still valid today for the Catholic Church, was granted by Pius VI, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of an important historical fact: the arrival in Vasto, on 7 February 1177, of Pope Alexander III, who found refuge in the church of San Pietro, defended by seven Templar castles around that small village.
Having escaped the danger, still under the protection of the Templars, on 9 March Alexander the Third set off again to reach Venice. Here he met his bitter enemy Federico Barbarossa, who after years of clashes, bowed to him, recognizing the superiority of papal power over imperial power.
From that success, which in many respects appeared to the Pope as a miracle, came the gratitude towards San Pietro and towards the village of Vasto, gratitude made perpetual by the institution of the Vastesi Jubilee.
Even today, this gratitude manages to keep the wall of an ancient church standing, which rested on a ridge that collapsed towards the sea many years ago.
