Byzantine Christianity in Southern Italy

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Wandile

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What are its origins ? I’ve always been curious.

Were they once Latins that later became byzantine. I once heard that an emperor conquered southern Italy and imposed the rite on all the churches there and this is why the Ecumenical patriarch had control over these churches [who were under the jurisdiction of the Pope prior to to this] for a period of 400 years beginning in 731 AD.
 
The region was reconquered by Justinian, as you allude to. I’m not sure what was there before that but it seems that at least following this period it became Byzantine (that is not to say it was not before, the region was historically known as Magna Graecia).

It was Byzantine until the Norman conquest of the area at which time Latin Rite Christianity was imposed on the region.

With the fall of the Byzantine Empire many fled to the area, reinvigorating the Byzantine Church in the area. IIRC this is when it took the name “Italo-Albanian”, Italo denoting those who had already been there, and Albanian being those who had fled from the Balkans.
 
I was really hoping more people could chip in with whatever information they have on the history of byzantine Christianity in Southern Italy. Please , don’t be scared to contribute. Follow the steps of His Holiness brother Nine-Two 😃
 
Wandile said:
What are its origins ? I’ve always been curious.

Were they once Latins that later became byzantine. I once heard that an emperor conquered southern Italy and imposed the rite on all the churches there and this is why the Ecumenical patriarch had control over these churches [who were under the jurisdiction of the Pope prior to to this] for a period of 400 years beginning in 731 AD.
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Hello brother,
The first Church of Rome was in Greek. Latin language was adopted later. The problem is that Orthodox people of Southern Italy(Greek origin) were hunted by the Holy Inquisition(and a bit earlier when differences started) and that’s why todays Southern Italians are Catholics. Most of them became “Catholics” with violence.
 
5Loaves said:
Catherine Alexander’s interviews in her Word From the Wise series includes Italo-Greek Church History with Fr. Francis Vivona.
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I doubt the knowledge of this man. It’s Franco-Latin church construct, not Italo-Greek(misleading title).

The Russians will say you that you need to be Christian Orthodox, not Russian. Every Orthodox can go there.

In Greece, we don’t call people “Catholics” but Franks. We are Romaioi(Romans). If you ask a Catholic if he’s Roman he’ll answer you “no, i’m Frank”. Because Franks have nothing to do with our history. They are the remains of the Crusaders and Uniats. Especially in the 1821 revolution they were always with the Turks and in 1919-23 Italians and French(Franks) and Westerns were hating Greeks in Asia Minor so much that they were going in villages and killing our people because we were GreekOrthodox.
 
pelinho said:
Hello brother,
The first Church of Rome was in Greek. Latin language was adopted later. The problem is that Orthodox people of Southern Italy(Greek origin) were hunted by the Holy Inquisition(and a bit earlier when differences started) and that’s why todays Southern Italians are Catholics. Most of them became “Catholics” with violence.
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Thanks but a little of you information is off. Yes the Roman church used Greek liturgically until pope Victor. But Southern Italy was always the same faith. There was one church back then, no orthodox vs Catholic. Everybody was one holy catholic and apostolic. The thing is from what it seems, the churches in southern Italy became byzantine after Justinian. I just need someone with more knowledge to confirm or deny this with evidence.
 
Hello again brother,
I was referring when differences started(little earlier before schisms).

The faith wasn’t the same brother. I’ve read a bit about the Greek saint Nilus the Younger(from Calabria) and i’ve took some information about that time. Except the fact that Byzantine authorities were cruel, as i remember(i might be wrong) there were still Gothic-lombard shaped churches and i think(not sure) that they were keeping the decusuib pseudo-Synod of Toledo and were confessing Filioque. If it wasn’t this, i’m sure that they were Arians.

About the historical staff that you want, you can find information here about Byzantine Italy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Byzantine_Italy
Most names are Greek as i see.
 
Even well before Byzantium and Christianity, “Greek Italy” was a fact of life, and of course back then nobody was making theological claims out of it. If Italy was Byzantinized at the time of Justinian (and I don’t know; as you might guess, this is outside of my areas of interest, as a non-Byzantine), he would not have been doing anything (culturally-speaking) that was not done long before him by the Greeks who settled in Italy in the year 600 B.C. with the founding of Neapolis (modern Naples). For an interesting overview of pre-Christian Greek settlement in Italy (excluding Sicily), which again I only bring up to contextualize the current conversation within wider patterns of cultural behavior common to Southern Italy since well before Christianity, see Michael C. Astour “Greek Civilization in Southern Italy” (Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 19, No. 1, Spring 1985), available as a PDF here: Please pay very close attention to the last paragraph, as that is the only one that does mention Christianity specifically, and the author makes the point that the vestiges of Byzantine Italy that remained in the extreme South in the early Middle Ages (by that time, a tiny portion of historically Greek Italy) were in fact a direct continuation or rather remnant of the previous Greek civilization that had been there.

So it would appear, if one takes the long view of history, that Wandile’s thesis that Southern Italy “became Byzantine” after Justinian only makes sense if it is meant in the same way that we could say that the Eastern Roman Empire itself “became Byzantine” by the founding of the new city and empire that had previously not been there (NB: exactly as Italy itself “became Roman”, which would be an odd thing to say). Otherwise, it is wrong. Southern Italy did not “become Byzantine” (Greek) – rather, it was always Greek (insofar as Christian history is concerned, since the Greek civilization was established there so long before Christ), and its portion and influence relative to that of the Romans/Latins shrank over the centuries, until the Greek Italians were left with one tiny corner. Shades of what happened to the Greeks in Egypt at Alexandria and elsewhere, I can’t help but notice… (the difference there being that the Greeks had established their city atop a preexisting Egyptian settlement, and of course that by any stretch of the imagination the Egyptian civilization itself is much older than the Greek, but I digress…)
 
dzheremi said:
Even well before Byzantium and Christianity, “Greek Italy” was a fact of life, and of course back then nobody was making theological claims out of it. If Italy was Byzantinized at the time of Justinian (and I don’t know; as you might guess, this is outside of my areas of interest, as a non-Byzantine), he would not have been doing anything (culturally-speaking) that was not done long before him by the Greeks who settled in Italy in the year 600 B.C. with the founding of Neapolis (modern Naples). For an interesting overview of pre-Christian Greek settlement in Italy (excluding Sicily), which again I only bring up to contextualize the current conversation within wider patterns of cultural behavior common to Southern Italy since well before Christianity, see Michael C. Astour “Greek Civilization in Southern Italy” (Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 19, No. 1, Spring 1985), available as a PDF here: Please pay very close attention to the last paragraph, as that is the only one that does mention Christianity specifically, and the author makes the point that the vestiges of Byzantine Italy that remained in the extreme South in the early Middle Ages (by that time, a tiny portion of historically Greek Italy) were in fact a direct continuation or rather remnant of the previous Greek civilization that had been there.

So it would appear, if one takes the long view of history, that Wandile’s thesis that Southern Italy “became Byzantine” after Justinian only makes sense if it is meant in the same way that we could say that the Eastern Roman Empire itself “became Byzantine” by the founding of the new city and empire that had previously not been there (NB: exactly as Italy itself “became Roman”, which would be an odd thing to say). Otherwise, it is wrong. Southern Italy did not “become Byzantine” (Greek) – rather, it was always Greek (insofar as Christian history is concerned, since the Greek civilization was established there so long before Christ), and its portion and influence relative to that of the Romans/Latins shrank over the centuries, until the Greek Italians were left with one tiny corner. Shades of what happened to the Greeks in Egypt at Alexandria and elsewhere, I can’t help but notice… (the difference there being that the Greeks had established their city atop a preexisting Egyptian settlement, and of course that by any stretch of the imagination the Egyptian civilization itself is much older than the Greek, but I digress…)
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Not my thesis, just something I’ve read that’s all. Thanks for the information though. But why did jurisdiction of the churches in southern Italy switch from Rome to Constantinople?
 
Apologies, Wandile. By calling it “your thesis”, I didn’t mean that you originated that idea, only that you wrote it in a post in this thread.

I do not know enough about the relations of the Byzantine Christians and the Latins to answer your question, though. Hopefully one of our resident EO posters who does know can help you out with that.
 
In th Catholic Encyclopedia I found this :

It is difficult to say whether the Byzantine (Greek) Rite was followed in any diocese of Southern Italy or Sicily before the eighth century. But the gradual hellenization of those regions, as well as the founding of numerous Greek monasteries, must have affected liturgical life. The spread of Greek monasticism in Italy received a strong impulse from the Rashidun Caliphate invasion of Levant and Egypt, and later from the ban on religious images or icons. The monks naturally retained their rite, and as the bishops were not infrequently chosen from their number, the diocesan liturgy, under favourable conditions, could easily be changed, especially since the Lombard occupation of the inland regions of Southern Italy cut off the Greeks in the South from communication with the Latin Church.

In Italy, before the arrival of the Albanians, was the presence of numerous Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox Church. But already in 1300, were almost all Latinized last Byzantine stronghold in Italy. The arrival of the Albanians reported the Eastern Christian faith in the West, giving lifeblood to the Italo-Greek spirituality now dying.

Byzantine period :

With the conquest of Italy by the Byzantine Empire in the Gothic War (535–554) began a Byzantine Period for Italy with the domination of Papacy from 537 to 752.

**When, in 726, Leo III the Isaurian, by a stroke of his pen, withdrew Southern Italy from the patriarchal jurisdiction of Rome and gave it to the Patriarch of Constantinople, the process of hellenization became more rapid; ** It received a further impulse when, on account of the Muslim occupation of Sicily, by Greeks and hellenized Sicilians repaired to Calabria and Apulia. Still it was not rapid enough to suit the Byzantine emperors, who feared lest those regions should again fall under the influence of the West, like the Duchy of Rome and the Exarchate of Ravenna. Finally, after the Saxon emperors had made a formidable attempt to drive the Greeks from the peninsula, Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas and the Patriarch Polyeuctos made it obligatory on the bishops, in 968, to adopt the Byzantine Rite. This order aroused lively opposition in some quarters, as at Bari, under Bishop Giovanni. Nor was it executed in other places immediately and universally. Cassano and Taranto, for instance, are said to have always maintained the Latin Rite. At Trani, in 983, Bishop Rodostamo was allowed to retain the Latin Rite, as a reward for aiding in the surrender of the city to the Greeks
 
Wandile said:
Not my thesis, just something I’ve read that’s all. Thanks for the information though. But why did jurisdiction of the churches in southern Italy switch from Rome to Constantinople?
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For geopolitical reasons. Byzantium(Constantinople’s name in anceint Greece) was far better than the dying capital(Rome).

For the hellenization part: Rome had become Greek in B.C. Would you like to send you some information about that? 🙂
 
pelinho said:
For geopolitical reasons. Byzantium(Constantinople’s name in anceint Greece) was far better than the dying capital(Rome).

For the hellenization part: Rome had become Greek in B.C. Would you like to send you some information about that? 🙂
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No thanks. I know about the hellenization of roman culture. I want yo know about liturgical Byzantinization of Southern Italy.
 
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