[2] Pontianus' body was buried in the local cemetery, called di Sincleta, outside the city walls.
Various services are held starting on the eve of the feast, which culminate in a procession through the streets of the city.
In 966, Bishop Balderic of Utrecht travelled to Rome to present an account of his administration, as required by Church law.
At the time that the Protestant Reformation took hold in Utrecht, Calvinist mobs attacked the Catholic cathedral there.
In 1994 the Primate of the Old Catholic Church returned this relic in a solemn manner to the abbess of the monastery which administers the basilica.
This developed from an ancient tradition that, before his death, the young martyr had predicted that "Spoleto will shake but not will collapse".