The
Italo-Greek Catholic Church, also known as the
Italo-Albanian Catholic Church, is a
Byzantine Rite sui
juris particular Church
in full union with the
Roman
Catholic Church.
Its members are concentrated in Sicily and southern Italy
.
History
In some
parts of southern Italy, a form of the Greek language is still preserved, in
particular near Taranto
and in
Calabria, remnants of a situation that was
once widespread, especially in Sicily, which was almost entirely
Greek when, in 831, the Arabs began their
conquest of the island. However, the Albanian
Arberesh members of Church trace their origin
rather to Albanians who fled the
Ottoman invasions, particularly after the
death of
Skanderbeg in
1468.
Not all of
these Albanians were of Byzantine Rite, since those from northern
Albania
were mainly of Latin
Rite. Of the Byzantine-Rite arrivals, some were
already Catholic, for example the Church of St. Vito in Piana degli
Albanesi
, and others soon accepted the authority of the
local Latin-Rite bishops. Their presence attracted also the
remnants of the earlier Greek-speaking communities and some others
who had fled from Greece proper because of the Turkish conquest. In
1595,
Pope Clement VIII
promulgated an Instruction for the guidance of Latin-Rite bishops
who had Greek Catholics in their dioceses, and
Pope Benedict XIV revised this Instruction
completely in 1742, providing the Italo-Greeks and Italo-Albanians
with a small code of canon law. Schools and seminaries for them
were founded in the eighteenth century.
The twentieth century saw the foundation in 1919 of the
Eparchy of Lungro in Calabria, which
serves Byzantine-Rite Albanians in mainland Italy, and in 1937 of
the
Eparchy of Piana
degli Albanesi for those in Sicily. The former has, for its
32,800 faithful, 29 parishes, two of which are of Latin Rite. Some
of the 15 parishes subject to the Eparch of Piana degli Albanesi
are also of Latin Rite. This eparchy has 28,500 faithful.
One month
before the foundation of the Eparchy of Piana degli Albanesi in
1937, the Byzantine-Rite monastery of Santa Maria di
Grottaferrata, not far from Rome
, was given
the status of a territorial
abbacy, separating it from the jurisdiction of the local
bishop. The abbot exercises jurisdiction over the monks and
local faithful similar to that of a diocesan bishop
This Italian Byzantine-Rite monastery is the only remnant of the
once-flourishing Italo-Greek monastic tradition. It was founded in
1004 by St. Nilus of Rossano, a monk of Greek descent from
Calabria, and has remained in continuous operation since then. It
is the only one of the Italo-Greek monasteries that has survived.
Most of them gradually fell into decadence, and the final blow came
with them being taken over by the Kingdom of Italy when it
secularized religious orders in 1866. Only the Grottaferrata
monastery, considered a national monument, was allowed to continue,
with the monks as its guardians. In the course of time, the civil
authorities have allowed them increasing independence.
In 1880 the Holy See ordered the liturgy of the monastery to be
purged of the Latin elements that had been introduced over the
centuries. Vocations were sought no longer from the general Italian
population, but instead chiefly among Italo-Albanians, and the
monks set up new monasteries in Sicily and Calabria.
The eparchies themselves have not been organized as a metropolia,
and remain on an equal footing. While directly subject to the Holy
See, they are associated with the local Latin metropolitan
see.
See also
Sources
- Oriente Cattolico (Vatican City: The Sacred
Congregation for the Eastern Churches, 1974)
- Annuario
Pontificio