Italo-Albanian Church

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Italo-Albanian Church
Latin Ecclesia Italo-Albanica ,
Italian Chiesa Cattolica Italo-Albanese
Albanian  Kisha Bizantine Arbëreshe
Basic data
Jurisdiction status sui iuris
rite Byzantine rite
Liturgical language Koine , Albanian , Italian
calendar Gregorian calendar
Establishment date June 2, 1784
statistics
Jurisdictions 3
Believers 62,000
Bishops 2
Parishes 45
Diocesan priest 71
Religious priest 9
Permanent deacons 6th
Friars 31
Religious sisters 168
Stand 2013
Template: Infobox rite church / maintenance / picture is missing

The Italo-Albanian Church , formerly known as the Italo-Greek Church , is an association of three jurisdictions of the Roman Catholic Church in Italy . These differ from the other jurisdiction districts in Italy by the fact that in them liturgy after Byzantine rite is celebrated and as a liturgical language primarily the Greek and Albanian language be used.

organization

The Italo-Albanian Church consists of two Italo-Albanian dioceses ( eparchies ) and one Italian-Greek territorial abbey:

These jurisdictions are assigned to the church regions in which they are located. However, they are not subordinate to any church province , but immediately , i.e. H. subordinated directly to the Holy See . Together they form their own conference association . The bishops (Eparchen) of Lungro and Piana degli Albanese and the abbot (Archimandrite) of Grottaferrata also belong to the Italian Bishops 'Conference and the Bishops' Conference of their respective ecclesiastical region.

The Italo-Albanian Church is an integral part of the Roman Catholic Church . The monastery of Santa Maria di Grottaferrata was subordinate to the Pope in Rome before the Eastern Schism and remained so afterwards. The Albanians who immigrated to Italy entered into communion with the Roman Pope without a union ever being formally concluded. The two Italian-Albanian bishoprics were established by Rome in the 20th century.

There are 98,000 Byzantine Rite Catholics in Italy today. They follow the Gregorian calendar , and besides Greek, Albanian and Italian are liturgical languages today .

history

The oldest part of the Italo-Albanian church is the Santa Maria di Grottaferrata monastery. It was founded in 1004 by Nilus von Rossano , a Greek from what was then Byzantine Calabria . After the schism of 1054, the monastery remained subordinate to the Pope, but held on to the celebration of the liturgy in the Byzantine rite.

The Albanian communities of the Byzantine rite came into being when around 40,000 Albanian religious refugees settled in Italy at the end of the 15th century . They had fled Epirus and southern Albania before the Ottoman conquest and were given places in sparsely populated regions in southern Italy and Sicily , where they founded their own communities. There they form the Arbëresh ethnic group , whose members still speak Albanian today. The Albanians were also able to retain their church customs in their new homeland.

The Greeks, who descended from the ancient colonists or who settled there in the course of the Byzantine conquest of southern Italy and Sicily under Justinian I in the 6th century and who were still very numerous in the Middle Ages, received fewer immigrants from Epirus. They are therefore now almost entirely assimilated and, as far as church life is concerned, Latinized.

Initially, the parishes of the Byzantine rite were subordinate to the local Latin bishops. Occasionally a titular bishop of the Greek rite was appointed to look after the Albanians.

With his Bull Pastoralis etsi, issued in 1742, Pope Benedict XIV reorganized the situation of Christians of the Byzantine rite in Italy. Even then, the Roman Church attached great importance to the preservation of the Greco-Albanian communities; Latinization of the rites was not wanted. The Albanian minority's own ecclesiastical traditions in southern Italy have contributed significantly to preserving their identity, language and culture. But there are also a few Albanian-speaking parishes that have adopted the Roman rite over the centuries.

In 1919 the Albanian communities of the Byzantine rite were given their own diocese with the establishment of the Lungro Eparchy, which today includes 27 communities. In 1937, the Eparchy Piana degli Albanesi was established in Sicily as the second diocese with 15 parishes.

In 1940 the three jurisdictions of the Italo-Albanian Church held their first joint synod in the basilica of Grottaferrata, the second followed in 2004 in the same place.

Originally the Catholics of the Byzantine Rite were called Italo-Greeks because of their Greek liturgical language, nowadays the name Italo-Albanians is common because most of these Christians have Albanian roots.

See also

literature

  • Liturgia delle ore italo-bizantina. Rito di Grottaferrata ; Introduction and translation into Italian by Stefano Parenti; Monumenta, studia, instrumenta liturgica, 12; Città del Vaticano 2001; ISBN 88-209-7125-9
  • Antonio Bellusci: Origjina dhe zhvillimi historik i Eparkisë bizantine arbëreshe e Ungrës në Kalabri dhe mbrojtja e identitetit arbëresh (1439–1919) ; in: Nikë Ukgjini, Willy Kamsi, Romeo Gurakuqi (eds.): Krishterimi ndër Shqiptarë. Simpozium ndërkombëtar, Tiranë, 16-19 nëntor 1999 ; Shkodra 2000; ISBN 99927-690-0-9 ; Pp. 208-225.
  • Ercole Lupinacci: Roli ekumenik i Kishës Katolike Arbëreshe ; in: Nikë Ukgjini, Willy Kamsi, Romeo Gurakuqi (eds.): Krishterimi ndër Shqiptarë. Simpozium ndërkombëtar, Tiranë, 16-19 nëntor 1999 ; Shkodra 2000; ISBN 99927-690-0-9 ; Pp. 494-497.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Eastern Catholic Churches 2013. Catholic Near East Welfare Association, accessed February 9, 2015 .