The Territorial Abbacy of Santa Maria of Grottaferrata is an ecclesiastical jurisdiction which administers the Byzantine Rite Abbey of Saint Mary in Grottaferrata located in Grottaferrata, Rome, Lazio, Italy. The Abbacy and its territory are stauropegic, that is, directly subordinate to a primate or synod, rather than to a local bishop. It is the only remnant of the once-flourishing traditions of Italo-Greek and Italo-AlbanianEastern Christian monasticism. It is also the only monastery of the Italian Basilian Order of Grottaferrata, (abbreviated O.S.B.I.), a religious order of the Italo-Albanian Greek Catholic Church which has played a major role in Albanian history, Albanian literature, and in the Albanian diaspora. The abbot ordinary is also the superior general of the Italian Basilian Order of Grottaferrata.[1] Though normally led by an abbot, the Abbacy has been under the authority of Bishop (now Cardinal) Marcello Semeraro since Pope Francis named him Apostolic Administrator of the Abbacy on 4 November 2013.[4]
The monastery has remained in continuous operation since then, but, particularly following the defeat of the uprising led by Skanderbeg and the conquest of the Albanian people by the Ottoman Empire, vocations were sought less and less from local Italian people of the Latin rite, but increasingly among the growing number of Italo-Albanianrefugee communities in southern Italy.
On 1 November 1571, the Italian Basilian Order of Grottaferrata was formally organized and established as part of the Counter-Reformation strengthening of the Eastern Catholic Churches by Cardinal Giulio Antonio Santorio.[8] Among the Albanian refugee communities and Greek villages of the Mezzogiorno, the monks of Grottaferrata set up many daughter foundations, particularly throughout Sicily and Calabria.
It is, however, the only one of these many Italo-Greek Byzantine Catholic monasteries that survives. Throughout the Medieval period and well into the Baroque era and it's aftermath, the Italo-Greek people of the Mezzogiorno increasingly switched from the Greek Byzantine Catholic Church to the Latin Rite under pressure from the local hierarchy, who often forcibly closed Byzantine Rite Monasteries and convents. Even though their speakers are now overwhelmingly Roman Rite, several distinct dialects of the Modern Greek language are still widely spoken throughout southern Italy.
Beginning under Bernardo Tanucci in the 18th-century Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and continuing under the newly constituted Kingdom of Italy during the Risorgimento in 1866, all others that had survived were closed down and their lands seized and sold when, influenced by the anti-religious currents of The Englightenment, local governments banned religious orders and expelled their members. Only Grottaferrata monastery, which was considered a national monument, was allowed to keep resident monks as its guardians. In the course of time, the Italian secular authorities allowed these monks increasing independence.[citation needed]
In the 1880s, the Holy See, seeking the peaceful transformation of the Orthodox Churches into Eastern Catholic Churches, ordered the Divine Liturgy offered at Grottaferrata purged of all Latin Rite borrowings that had been introduced over the centuries.[9] As the one Byzantine Catholic monastery in Italy not closed down, the monks of Grottaferrata prevented the death of their monastic traditions and have contributed to its rebirth and expansion. As Italo-Albanian refugee monks arrived from the other closed down religious houses replaced the old pro-Latinisation guard in Grottaferrata, they contributed to the rebirth of the Abbey and became notable as palaeographers, liturgists, and musicologists, as well as the main Albanologists and Byzantinists of the period. One regular visitor to Grottaferrata during the early 20th-century was Leonid Feodorov, who went on in 1917 to become the first Exarch of the Russian Greek Catholic Church.
These same monks were active promoters of reunion between West and East, with missionary evangelization of ethnicities in the Balkans that had converted to Islam under Ottoman Turkish rule, particularly after 1912 in newly Independent Albania. The effects of this mission, generally welcomed in a positive way before communism in Albania, quickly created a very close religious and cultural bridge between the Albanian-speaking refugee communities of southern Italy and the Catholic Church in Albania, resulting in the resurrection of the Albanian Greek-Catholic Church and the ordination of various missionary priests.
Blessed Josif Papamihali (1912-1948).
Among these stands out the martyr and saint of Albania, who graduated from the Pontifical Greek College of Saint Athanasius in Rome and deeply loved the Abbey and the culture of the Italo-Albanian people, Blessed Josif Papamihali (1912-1948). Papamihali went to become a confessor and apostle of Eastern Catholicism, who was persecuted, arrested, sentenced to a labour camp, where he was buried alive by his guards after falling from exhaustion in a marsh. After the fall of communism in Albania, he was beatified in Shkodër along with thirty-seven other fellow Albanian Catholic Martyrs on 5 November 2016.[10][11]
The Territorial Abbey also operates a rectory church in central Rome, Saint Basil at the Gardens of Sallust.[13] Abbot Apolemone Agreste, whose coat of arms appears on the arches within, had a church dedicated to Saint Basil built on St. Basil Street in Rome, not far from the Piazza Grimana, now the Piazza Barberini. Attached to it was a hospice. The monks of the Order of St. Basil had it restored in 1682, as an inscription on the doorway testifies.[14]
The Arbëreshë, also known as Albanians of Italy or Italo-Albanians, are an Albanian ethnolinguistic group minority historically settled in Southern and Insular Italy.
Grottaferrata is a comune (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, situated on the lower slopes of the Alban Hills, 20 kilometres southeast of Rome. It has grown up around the Abbey of Santa Maria di Grottaferrata, founded in 1004. Nearby communes include Frascati, Rocca di Papa, Marino and Rome.
Basilian monks are Greek Catholic monks who follow the rule of Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea (330–379). The term 'Basilian' is typically used only in the Catholic Church to distinguish Greek Catholic monks from other forms of monastic life in the Catholic Church. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, as all monks follow the Rule of Saint Basil, they do not distinguish themselves as 'Basilian'.
Nilus the Younger, also called Neilos of Rossano was a Griko monk and abbot from Calabria. He was the founder of Italo-Byzantine monasticism in southern Italy. He is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches, and his feast day is celebrated on September 26 in both the Byzantine calendar and the Roman Martyrology.
A territorial abbey is a particular church of the Catholic Church comprising defined territory which is not part of a diocese but surrounds an abbey or monastery whose abbot or superior functions as ordinary for all Catholics and parishes in the territory. Such an abbot is called a territorial abbot or abbot nullius diœceseos. A territorial abbot thus differs from an ordinary abbot, who exercises authority only within the monastery's walls or to monks or canons who have taken their vows there. A territorial abbot is equivalent to a diocesan bishop in Catholic canon law.
The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy, officially the Sacred Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy and Exarchate of Southern Europe, is a diocese of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople with its see in Venice. The diocese was created in 1991.
The Italian Catholic Church, or Catholic Church in Italy, is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in communion with the Pope in Rome, under the Conference of Italian Bishops. The pope serves also as Primate of Italy and Bishop of Rome. In addition to the Italian Republic, two other sovereign states are included in Italian dioceses: San Marino and Vatican City. There are 225 dioceses in the Catholic Church in Italy, see further in this article and in the article List of Catholic dioceses in Italy.
The Church of St. Mary of the Admiral, also called Martorana, is the seat of the Parish of San Nicolò dei Greci, overlooking the Piazza Bellini, next to the Norman church of San Cataldo and facing the Baroque church of Santa Caterina, in Palermo, Italy.
San Demetrio Corone is a town and municipality in the Calabria region of Italy, at an altitude of 521 meters and with 3,387 inhabitants. The town is among the most important cultural centers of the Albanian communities in Italy and preserves the Albanian language, the Byzantine rites, customs, culture and ethnic identity of its origin. It is home to the Collegio of Sant'Adriano, a boarding school which produced many patriots and theorists/revolutionaries in the Italian Independence wars and is an important religious and cultural organism for the conservation of the oriental rite and of the Albanian traditions. It is part of the district of the Italo-Albanian Church of the Eparchy of Lungro.
Lungro is a town and comune (municipality) in the Province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of Italy.
The Order of Saint Basil the Great, also known as the Basilian Order of Saint Josaphat, is a Greek Catholic monastic order of pontifical right that works actively among Ukrainian Catholics and other Greek-Catholic churches in central and Eastern Europe. The order received approbation on August 20, 1631, and is based at the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, Vilnius.
The Ukrainian Studites are a monastic order of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
Gabriel Acacius Coussa, BA was a Syrian prelate of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church who served as Secretary of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches from 1961 to 1962. He was the first Eastern Catholic to hold this position. He was a member of the Basilian Aleppian Order and was created a cardinal in 1962.
Bartholomew of Grottaferrata or Bartholomew the Younger was an Italo-Greek abbot at the monastery at Grottaferrata.
The Basilian Order of the Most Holy Saviour abbreviated BS, also known as the Basilian Salvatorian Order, is an Eastern Catholic monastic order of Pontifical Right for men of the Greek-Melkite Catholic Church. The name derives from its motherhouse, the Holy Saviour Monastery, at Joun in Chouf near Sidon, Lebanon.
The Italo-Albanian Catholic Church or Italo-Albanian Byzantine-Catholic Church is one of the 23 Eastern Catholic Churches which, together with the Latin Church, compose the Catholic Church. It is an autonomous (sui juris) particular church in full communion with the Pope of Rome, directly subject to the Roman Dicastery for the Oriental Churches, but which follows the Byzantine Rite, the ritual and spiritual traditions that are common in most of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It uses two liturgical languages: Koine Greek, the traditional language of the Eastern Churches, and Albanian, the native language of most of its adherents.
A particular church is an ecclesiastical community of followers headed by a bishop, as defined by Catholic canon law and ecclesiology. A liturgical rite, a collection of liturgies descending from shared historic or regional context, depends on the particular church the bishop belongs to. Thus the term "particular church" refers to an institution, and "liturgical rite" to its ritual practices.
Giuseppe Schirò (1690–1769) was an Arbëreshë writer of the 18th century, and Catholic priest of the Byzantine Rite. In 1736, he was appointed Byzantine Catholic Archbishop of Durazzo.
The Pontifical Greek College of St. Athanasius is a Pontifical College in Rome that observes the Byzantine rite.
Josif Papamihali, was an Albanian Catholic priest of the Byzantine rite.
↑ Ronald Roberson. "The Eastern Catholic Churches 2010"(PDF). Catholic Near East Welfare Association. Archived from the original(PDF) on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 15 December 2010. Information sourced from Annuario Pontificio 2010 edition
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
