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752
GREEK
Ohio, and Illinois. For their spiritual needs there are
thirteen Syrian Greek Catholic priests, seven of them
Basilian monks of the Congregation of the Holy
Saviour from the Diocese of Zahleh and P^arzul, four of
them Basilian monks of the Congregation of St. John
(Soarite) from the Dioceses of Aleppo and Zahleh, and
two secular priests from the Diocese of Beirut.
Owing to the poverty of most Syrian congregations,
they have not maintained any schools and have no
Sunday-school instruction, and the majority of the
Syrian children attend the nearest Latin parochial
school, if there be one. They have a small Arabic
paper "Al-Kown" (The Universe), published in New
York City, and have the church society of St. George.
IV. Italian Greek Catholics. — In the extreme southern part of Italy and in the Island of Sicily the Greek Rite has always flourished, even from Apostolic times. Three of the popes (Sts. Eusebius, Agatho, and Zacharias) were Greeks from that region. Many of the Greek saints venerated by the Church were Southern Italians or Sicilians, and the great Greek mon- astery of Grottaf errata near Rome was founded by St. Nilus, a native of Rossano in Calabria. The Greek Rite in Southern Italy never fell into schism or sepa- rated from unity with Rome at the time of the great Schism of Constantinople. Although they held to their faith and rite, yet the fact that they were not thereafter closely allied with their fellow-Greeks of Constantinople caused the followers of their rite to diminish. After the schism an idea grew up among the Italians of the Roman Rite that the Greek lan- guage and ritual were in some indefinable way identi- fied with the schism. This was intensified upon the failure of the Greeks after the Council of Florence (1428) to adhere to the union. Therefore, as the Greek language died out among the southern Italians, they gradually gave up their Greek Rite and adopted the Roman Rite instead. While the Greek Rite thus ijecame gradually confined to monasteries, religious houses, and country towns, and would perhaps never have died out on Italian soil, yet it was reinforced in a singular manner by immigration from the Balkan peninsula in the period between 14.')0 and 1500. The Albanians, who were converted to Christianity and fol- lowed the Greek Rite, using the Greek language in their liturgy, were persecuted by the Turks, and, by reason of the many Turkish victories over the Alban- ians undertheirchieftain, George Castriota, also known by his Turkish name of Scanderbeg (Alexander Bey), were forced to leave their native land in large num- bers. Scanderbeg applied to Pop.e Eugene IV for permission for his people to settle in Italy, so as to escape the Moslem persecutions. From time to time they settled in Calabria and Sicily, and received among other privileges that of retaining their Greek Rite wherever their colonies were established. Since that time they, like the Greek inhabitants of Soutliern Italy, have become entirely Italianized, but, together with them, have retained their Greek Rite quite dis- tinct from their Latin neighbours down to the present day. All the Italians who follow the Greek Rite in Southern Italy are known as Albanese (Albanians), although only the older generations of that race retain their knowledge of the Albanian tongue. The Mass and all the offices of the Church are of course said in Greek according to the Rite of Constantinople, although a few Latinizing practices have crept in. The smaller churches do not have the iconostasis, priests do not confer confirmation, but it is given by the bishop, and they follow the Gregorian calendar instead of the Julian calendar followed by all the other Greeks.
When the immigration to America from the south of Italy and from Sicily began in large proportions, the Italo-Grccks came also. They are from Calabria, Apulia, and Basilicata in Italy, and from the Dioceses of Palermo, Monreale, and Messina in Sicily. They are settled in the United States chiefly in New York,
Philadelphia, and Chicago, and throughout the States
of Penns.ylvania and Illinois. It is claimed that the
Greek Catholic population of Italy has sent a third of its
ninnber to America, and some well-informed Albanese
have even declared that there are perhaps more. They
estimate that there are 20,000 of them in the United
States, the greater part of whom are in the vicinity
of New York and Philadelphia. As a ride they have
not shown themselves in any wise as devoted church-
attendants, but that may be because they have been
in a measure neglected, for everyone assumes that an
Italian must be of the Roman Rite and ought to go to
a Latin church. They have neither the means to con-
struct churches of their own rite nor do they care to
frequent churches of the Latin Rite, although their
societies usually attend the Italian Catholic churches
and celebrate their festivals according to the Latin
Rite. In many places they attend the churches of the
Ruthenian Greek Catholics, and in some few instances
some have gone to the Hellenic churches of the Greek
Orthodox, where the language of the ritual is Greek.
During the year 1904 the first (and so far the only)
Italian Greek C'atholic priest, Papas (Rev.) t'iro Pin-
nola, was sent from Sicily by Cardinal Celesia of
Palermo to the United States, to look after the scat-
tered flock of Greek Catholics here, and he is now a
priest of the Archdiocese of New York. He found
that these Italians, being accustomed to the language
and rites of the Greek Church, as well as infected by the
inertia of so many of the newcomers to these shores,
had not attended the Latin C'atholic churches, and
that they had become the prey of all sorts of mission-
ary experiments to draw them away from their alle-
giance to the Faith. Besides, they were among the
poorest of the Italian immigrants and had been unable
to establish or maintain a chapel or church of their rite.
He took energetic steps to look after them and on
Easter Day, 1906, had the pleasure of opening the
first Italian Greek C'atholic chapel on Broome Street
in the C!ity of New York. This has progressed so far
that he has now a larger missionary chapel (Our Lady
of Grace) on Stanton Street, with a congregation of
about 400, where the Cireek Rite in the Greek language
is celebrated. He has also various missionary stations
in Brooklyn and on Long Island, which he visits at
regular intervals, but he has been unable to do any-
thing for the Italian Greek Catholics in Pennsjdvania
and elsewhere. Other priests of their rite are needed.
There is a small school attached to the CJreek Catholic
chapel in New York where the Church Catechism and
Greek singing is taught, a-s well as several Italian and
English branches, and children are instructed in their
church duties. There is quite a large society of men,
the "Fratellanza del Santissimo Crocefisso", a society
for mutual benefit, religious instruction, and the build-
ing of an Italian Greek church. There are some ten
or twelve Italo-Albanese societies, having branches in
various parts of the L'nited States, but devoted mostly
to secular objects. There is also a small weekly Ital-
ian paper, "L'Operaio", for the Italo-Albanese and their
Greek Rite, but it is also devoted to Socialism and the
wildest labour theories, so that its usefulnessisdoubtful.
Nothing, e.xcept a few newspaper and magazine articles, has been written in English or the Western European languages about the Greek Catholics in America; their own publications must be consulted.
Amerikanskit Russky Kalendar (New York and Pittsburg, 1S96-1909); Russko-Amerkansky Kalendar ,s'„;,,,m, (Soninton. 1897-19021; Matri\?.ofv, Zaokeanskaya Riis in iIm / /,„ ,< /-.kAi/ Vifs/iiiA. l.-WII (St. Petersburg, 1897); A'n/' - i - r/-
kanskikh Hu.^inir (New York, 1907-1909); .)/. ^ n^-
var, 1SU()-19(>9); rharities, XVI (May, Nr« \oik, ridC); Calcndarul Zinruliii Romanul (Cleveland, 19091; Annual Rc- voTts ofCommissinner of Immigralion (Washington, 1890-1908); The Messmaer. XLII (Sept.-Uee., 1904); XLV (Feb., 1906, New York); and the files of Vieslnik, Pravda, and .Si^obnda.
Andrew J. Shipman.
Greek Church.— This subject will be treated under the following heads: I. Explanation of Terms; II. The Greek Orthodox Church and Its Divisions; III. Greek
