Byzantine rite, with the inevitable notes of Catholic use.[1] The peculiarities of the Italo-Greeks are, in outline, these. Rodotà calls them peculiarities of the Basilian monks in Italy.[2] But that, I think, is only because at his time the Byzantine rite in Italy was maintained chiefly by the monks. The other churches seem to have had the same points. What they come to is that there are Roman infiltrations, some of great, some of hardly any, importance. The chief point of all was the use of azyme bread for the holy Eucharist; next to this, in importance, are feasts taken from the Roman Calendar and the use of Latin vestments.
We have noted that some at least of these Italo-Greek peculiarities go far back into the Middle Ages. After the Norman conquest it was almost inevitable that there should be Latin influence among the Greeks in Italy. There is, for instance, a curious combination of the Byzantine Proanaphora with a translation into Greek of the Roman Canon, called the Liturgy of St Peter, dating from the ninth or tenth century.[3] It is commonly said that the chief Romanizing points, azyme bread and Roman vestments, were introduced by Cardinal Bessarion at Grottaferrata, and then spread among all the Italo-Greeks. This, however, is a mistake.[4] Rodotà says roundly: "The Basilians of our time celebrate the holy
- ↑ The Pope's name in the intercessions, etc.
- ↑ Rodotà, "del Rito greco," ii, cap. xii, pp. 224-233.
- ↑ Printed in C. A. Swainson, "The Greek Liturgies" (Cambridge, 1884), pp. 191-203; see F. E. Brightman, "Eastern Liturgies" (Oxford, 1896), p. xci.
- ↑ The use of azyme bread seems to have begun, almost insensibly, from the frequent inter-communion between Italo-Greeks and their Roman neighbours. The XIVth Roman Ordo (by Card. James Gaetano, fourteenth century) describes the communion of an Abbot from the Pope's hand, when he is blessed by the Pope. It is, of course, Roman, in one kind and with azyme (§ 57, P.L., lxxviii, 1173, B); no exception is made, though at that time Archimandrites of Grottaferrata were frequently blessed by the Pope himself. At least, then, they must have made their Communion in the Roman form. Eugene IV (1431-1447), by Bessarion's advice, allowed the Italo-Greeks to consecrate bread, leavened, but made in small, thin, round cakes, looking like the Roman azyme altar-breads. At first many opposed this. Then, when the custom had obtained, the further change to azyme must have followed easily. Side by side with this change went that into Communion under one kind alone. Rodotà (ii, 229) quotes a letter to the Inquisition by a Byzantine Protopapa in the province of Otranto (1603), which shows that it had then been made there. A detailed discussion of the whole question, with many curious details, will be found in Rodotà, "del Rito greco," ii, pp. 226-231; see also "Roma e l'Oriente," vii (1914), p. 341.
