originally from Tarsus in Cilicia, and his companion the Archimandrite Adrian, were Greek monks of Calabria sent to England by Pope Vitalian (657-672). Tarasios, Patriarch of Constantinople (784-806), was a Greek of Sicily. During Iconoclast times, at the second Council of Nicæa (787), and then at the time of Photius' schism, Sicily seems solidly Greek and Byzantine. Gregory Asbestas of Syracuse ordained Photius. But this already brings us to the period after the Byzantine usurpation in Lower Italy and Sicily in the eighth century.[1]
- ↑ There has been considerable controversy about the rites used in Magna Græcia, and still more about those of Sicily in the period before the Byzantine aggression in the eighth century. The controversy is complicated by the fact that writers on all sides speak of two rites, "Latin" and "Greek," supposing always that "Latin" means Roman, and "Greek" Byzantine. In the eighteenth century John di Giovanni, Canon of Palermo, wrote a book to defend the theory that in Sicily Latin was the common language from the time of the apostles, the Roman rite being used almost exclusively from the fifth to the eighth century. He calls himself Iohannes de Iohanne, "De diuinis Siculorum officiis Tractatus," Palermo, 1736 (see especially chaps. iv-vii, pp. 23-47). He argues from Innocent I's letter to Decentius and those of Leo I and Gregory I (quoted above). Joseph Morisani, Canon of Reggio, "De Protopapis et Deutereis Græcorum et Catholicis eorum ecclesiis Diatriba" (Naples, 1768), holds the same view, admitting only occasional "Greek" liturgies in some cities, for the Byzantine officials (pp. 157-164). J. S. Assemani, "Italicæ hist. Scriptores," vol. iv, cap. iii, pp. 102-111, agrees, on the whole, with this. Mgr. Lancia di Brolo believes that the Sicilian rite was exactly that of Rome, on the strength of Leo I and Gregory I's letters ("Storia della Chiesa in Sicilia," i, 398). On the other hand, Ottavio Caetano maintains that everything in Sicily, language and rite, was always Greek ("Isagoge ad hist. s. Sic.," cap. xlii; in J. G. Grævius, "Thesaurus Antiq. et Hist. Siciliæ," vol. ii, Leiden, 1723, cols. 210-218). In § xi (cols. 215-216) he quotes many witnesses. P. P. Rodotà refutes di Giovanni's arguments, I think, successfully. He quotes many texts, showing that the Popes tolerated other rites in their Patriarchate, as, for instance, in Illyricum and Thessalonica. He thinks that the earliest liturgical use in Sicily was Greek, that there was then considerable Latin infiltration, that from 553, when the Greeks took over again the rule of the island, Greek language and rite "took again their ancient vigour" ("dell' Origine, Progresso e Stato presente del Rito greco in Italia," 3 vols., Rome, 1758-1763, vol. i, cap. iii, §§ 12-18, pp. 74-87). For my part,
di Brolo denies this, and fixes his date only as somewhere between 680 and 730 ("St. d. Ch. in Sicilia," ii, cap. ii, pp. 38-57). In P.G., xcviii, 1181-1228, is a dissertation on his date by John Lancea of Palermo. Krumbacher says, "At any rate, he must not be considered later than the seventh century" ("Byzantinische Litteratur," 2nd edition, Munich, 1897, pp. 128-129).
