Eparchy Piana degli Albanesi
Eparchy Piana degli Albanesi | |
Basic data | |
---|---|
Rite church | Italo-Albanian Church |
Country | Italy |
Church region | Sicily |
Ecclesiastical province | Immediate |
Diocesan bishop | Sedis vacancy |
Emeritus diocesan bishop | Giorgio Demetrio Gallaro |
founding | 1937 |
surface | 420 km² |
Parishes | 15 ( AP2008 ) |
Residents | 30,000 ( AP2008 ) |
Catholics | 28,500 ( AP2008 ) |
proportion of | 95% |
Diocesan priest | 30 ( AP2008 ) |
Religious priest | 1 ( AP2008 ) |
Catholics per priest | 919 |
Permanent deacons | 1 ( AP2008 ) |
Friars | 8 ( AP2008 ) |
Religious sisters | 121 ( AP2008 ) |
rite | Byzantine rite |
Liturgical language |
Greek Latin Albanian Italian |
cathedral | San Demetrio Cathedral in Piana degli Albanesi |
Co-cathedral | San Nicolò dei Greci in Palermo |
Website | http://www.eparchiapiana.it/ |
The Eparchy Piana degli Albanesi ( ital . : Eparchia di Piana degli Albanesi , alb . : Eparhia e Horës së Arbëreshëvet , lat . : Eparchia Planensis Albanensium ) is an eparchy , d. H. a diocese with a Greek rite of the Roman Catholic Church in Sicily . It is one of the two Italian-Albanian dioceses in Italy . The eparchy belongs to the ecclesiastical region of Sicily , but is not assigned to any ecclesiastical province , but immediately , i.e. directly subordinate to the Holy See .
General
In addition to the Cathedral of San Demetrio, there are eleven other churches of the eparchy in Piana degli Albanesi. Other places that belong to the eparchy are Contessa Entellina with six churches, Mezzojuso with nine churches, Palazzo Adriano with eight churches and Santa Cristina Gela with one church.
The co-cathedral Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio in Palermo , called La Martorana, is also the seat of the parish of San Nicolò dei Greci for all believers living in Palermo with the Byzantine rite.
history
In the 15th and 16th centuries, numerous Albanians and Greeks fled the Turks to southern Italy and Sicily and founded new settlements there. They preserved the Byzantine rite common in the Eastern Church , which was later promoted by the Holy See. They maintained close relationships with the semi-autonomous Christian community of Himara in Albania until the 17th century . Mission priests were sent there several times. In 1734 the Albanian priest Giorgio Guzzetta, with the support of the archbishop, founded the Greco-Albanian seminary in Palermo , where most of the priests of the Byzantine rite were trained from then on.
Up until the 20th century, these parishes with the Byzantine rite were subordinate to the respective Roman Catholic local bishops of the Latin dioceses. After a separate diocese (“ eparchy ”) had already been established in southern Italy in 1917 for the parishes with the Byzantine rite, the Eparchy Lungro , the Eparchy Piana degli Albanesi for the Italo-Albanian parishes in Sicily was also established on October 26, 1937. While at first only the parishes with the Byzantine rite belonged to the eparchy, in 1960 the parishes with the Latin rite on their territory were also affiliated to it.
The Eparchy Piana degli Albanesi is united with the Eparchy Lungro and Santa Maria di Grottaferrata , a territorial abbey of the Byzantine Rite near Rome, in a conference association, the Italo-Albanian Church . In 2004 the three jurisdictions held their second joint synod in the basilica of Grottaferrata, the first in 1940 in the same place.
Bishops
From 1937 to 1967 the Eparchy Piana degli Albanesi was headed by an Apostolic Administrator . In 1967 Giuseppe Perniciaro, until then Auxiliary Bishop of Piana degli Albanesi, was appointed the first eparchen .
Apostolic Administrators:
- 1937–1946: Cardinal Luigi Lavitrano , Archbishop of Palermo
- 1947–1967: Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini , Archbishop of Palermo
Eparchen:
- 1967–1981: Giuseppe Perniciaro (auxiliary bishop since 1938)
- 1981–1987: Ercole Lupinacci (from 1987 Bishop of the Lungro Eparchy)
- 1988-2013: Sotìr Ferrara
- 2013–2015: Cardinal Paolo Romeo (Apostolic Administrator)
- 2015–2020: Giorgio Demetrio Gallaro , then Secretary of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches
- Sedis vacancy since February 25, 2020
See also
literature
- Paolo Gionfriddo: Piana degli Albanesi . In: Gaetano Zito (ed.): Storia delle chiese in Sicilia Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del Vaticano 2009, pp. 687-694 ISBN 978-88-209-8171-6
- Umberto Benigni: Italo-Greeks . In: Catholic Encyclopedia , Volume 8, Robert Appleton Company, New York 1910 ((obsolete)).
Web links
- Eparchy Piana degli Albanesi and map of the ecclesiastical region of Sicily on the official website of the Catholic Church of Italy (in Italian)
- Entry on Eparchy of Piana degli Albanesi (Italo-Albanese) on catholic-hierarchy.org
- Entry on Italo-Albanese Diocese of Piana degli Albanesi on gcatholic.org (English)