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This is the site of the Italo-Greek-Albanian monastery of Grottaferrata outside Rome--celebrating the 1000 year foundation by St. Nilo of Rossano Calabria.
http://www.abbaziagreca.it/

i don't think the utica address has any connection with any canonical church----this is what i was told------from what i can gather the reason there is not an Italo-Albanian parish is lack of people who desire it----most Italo-Albanians were assimilated into the Latin rite church over time----

The two Italian Italo-Albanian eparchies, in Sicily and Calabria seem to be holding their own. There is a monastery in Calabria that was reopened after centuries by monks from Mt. Athos. There are several other projects involving the Greek Orthodox Church in Italy taking place in Calabria. Also, many Calabrian, Apulian, and Sicilian towns are rediscovering their Byzantine heritage. There are several churches that have been restored from the 12th and 13 th centuries. The Italo-Albanian-Greek Church is holding it's first synond since the 40s this year. The synod will have representatives attending from the Albanian Orthodox Church.

Dear Vito,

Thanks for posting.

Could you tell us the date and place of the Italo-Albanian Greek Church's upcoming Synod?

In the risen Christ,
Andrew

Cristo e` risorto! Dear Andrew, The synod will take place in the autumn of 2004 in conjunction with the thousand year anniversary of the founding of the monastery at Grottaferrata. I'll look for a more specific date and further information and pass it along. The synod will focus on 7 major themes among which are liturgy and ecumenical dialogue. Working groups in the various areas have been meeting over the past couple of years in preparation. Ciao for now, Vito

Kreesdos haryav ee merelotz!
Christ is risen from the dead!

Chaldean Catholic wrote:
The legitimization of the Eastern Catholic Churches does not necessarily depend on these two Churches' constant unity with Rome. Had they too been out of communion with Rome and later restored like the rest of the Eastern Catholic Churches, then the Eastern Catholic position would still be legitimate.

reply: I never denied this, so please, don't jump to conclusions. I accept Balamand, of course I believe your Churches to be legitimate. Besides, even if I didn't, do you think I'd have the nerve to join a Eastern Catholic forum only to tell them they aren't legitimate. I hope I have more class than this.

Chaldean Catholic wrote:
We Eastern Catholics see ourselves as restoring the original unity which was broken by various early schisms. Unfortunately, not all of the East has been restored to this unity. Our mother Churches should have never broken that original unity in the first place, and so our position of having restored that original unity is quite a legitimate one.

reply: As an Orthodox believer, I may or may not agree with your statement that our Mother Churches should not have broke with Old Rome. If I did agree with you, this does not mean Old Rome is off the hook. Remember your own Pontiff said it was sins on BOTH SIDES which led to the schism. So I could counter with the statement that former Catholic Pontiffs should have never took many of the positions they took which led to our Churches schism. If this is true, then it could also be said that our Patriarch's might've been quite justified to hold the positions they held. Who knows? But I never questioned your Churches' legitimacy so there's no real reason of going any farther with this.

Chaldean Catholic wrote:
After the restoration of our original unity with Rome, we lost some of our ancient traditions and replaced them with various Latin traditions. In recent times, the Popes have been telling us to recover our ancient traditions in order to reflect authentic Eastern Catholicism. This I would say is our second ongoing restoration which will take years to accomplish.

reply:
May God help you all accomplish this. (Personally, I got tired of waiting).

But I think you missed the point of my original question. I probably wasn't clear enough. Now that I have explained (above) what I didn't mean, my original statement was that I wondered why I came across several Eastern Catholic Churches making the claim about never loosing communion with Rome. That was all I meant: I wondered why. Being they were already justified, as you have said because they thought their Orthodox Mother Churches were wrong to excommunicate Rome in the first place. Well then, if this is true, why the added phenomena of many Churches claiming they NEVER were separated? This was my question.

Trusting in Christ's Resurrection,
Ghazar

Hi Bill,

There's no definitive answer to this, but I know of what you speak. I've observed it, although not recently, and, at one time, it seems to me that it was pretty common.

I'll give you my personal opinion. Originally, at least, I think it was a case of wanting to be "more Catholic" or "as Catholic" as the Maronites. (Because the Italo-Greek-Albanians are such a minority Church and not well-known - even among other Byzantines, I tend to doubt their continuous communion really played any role for most folks.) Thirty years ago, especially among Melkites , Maronites were sometimes seen as having a "superiority complex" about their claimed continuity of communion (and it was sometimes an accurate characterization, I heard Maronites address the issue in ways that could only be called triumphalism).

I think the idea eventually took on its own life. Everybody's "history" had some parish, community, or diocese, nestled off somewhere, that supposedly maintained at least a fingertip relationship with Rome, sporadically or continuously.

And, I have no doubt that there were individuals with small bodies of followers who did (or tried to) maintain communion as best they could (admittedly not easy, given communications and the sometimes schizophrenic messages received from Rome and its missioners). But, when push comes to shove, even in my own Church, to rabidly claim that we had anything resembling continuous communion prior to 1724 (the profession of fidelity by Eftimios Saifi, of blessed memory, the father of our union, a few decades earlier paved the way but didn't result in institutional communion until his death in 1723), is to fantasize.

For anyone other than the Maronites or the Italo-Greek-Albanians* to claim never having been separated, dishonors their Orthodox forebearers, rather than establishing any greater claim to Catholicity or (small "o") orthodoxy.

Many years,

Neil

*Even among the Italo-Greek-Albanians, there is the reality that their ranks were swelled at one point in history by poorly-educated Albanian Orthodox refugees who, on arrival in Italy, were glad to find churches that worshipped in their tradition and language and assimilated into them with no thought as to them being Catholic, rather than the Orthodox ones that they had left behind. Thus, while there was no separation on the part of the original Italo-Greek (or the earlier, but no longer distinctly identifiable, Byzantine Italians), that Church today absolutely includes persons whose ancestors returned to communion with Rome, though passively or by default.

Dear Neil,

Christ is Risen!

This explanation makes a lot of sense. Thank you for it. I have a relative question about the historicity of even the Maronites claim. I'll post again soon. Thanks for your insight.

Trusting in His Resurrection,
Ghazar

Dear Bill:

Thanks for clarifying.

Neil, thanks for the info.

God bless,

CC

Neil's clarification really begs the question:

Is it fair to say that East and West were not in communion at the time of the arrival of the bulk of the Italo-Albanian Greek Rite (1500-1750)?

Yes, we know that Patriarchs of East and West had been fighting since the 900s, but did the other hierarchs & rank and file really understand it as a break in communion? My research (the research of others that I have seen) says otherwise.

The 16th century recognition by local Latin Rite bishops of the Pat. of Ohrid's authority to send an auxillary bishop to reside in Southern Italy for the purpose of ordaining men to care for the Byz. Rite flock is a perfect example and only one of many.

In the Venetian-held Greek Islands, intercommunion, especially in the cases of mixed marriages is dicoumented well into the 18th century.

I think that the two Marian dogmas coupled with the infallibility of the Pope of Rome (ex-cathedra) and the mindset that dogmaticization of these beliefs imply are what really convinced the East that we were now "ontologically" different from the West.

So, the idea of sudden split/schism should be tossed out of the window and the reality of a glacial drifting apart needs to be reconsidered.

It could even be the model for reunification.

In Christ,
Andrew

Andrew,

I could not agree with you more. The description that I applied to the Albanian immigrants as

could as easily be applied to the parishoners of most any village parish community in any of our Churches for centuries on end. And, as I think you are suggesting, the clergy - particularly its non-hierarchical members - were frequently as uneducated as those they served, sometimes able to fulfill their liturgical responsibility solely by rote. With that as a setting, it's easy to understand how and why wholesale (eparchial-sized were common) movements of allegiance back and forth between Rome and Constantinople (or the corresponding entity in the non-Byzantine communions) occurred.

Once a decision was made by the ecclesio-political leadership (which was likely as often made for political as theological reasons), it was accepted and followed by the rank and file faithful to whom it usually had little, if any, practical significance and as often made no noticeable (to them) difference in their religious life or observance. The average church-goer knew little and cared less about whether or not the "Filioque" was included or not and, to the extent that they understood or were aware of the concept of Petrine primacy, would likely have thought of/understood it primarily in political terms (i.e., an effort by the West to dominate the East - or vice-versa, depending on who was urging which allegiance) - not unlikely how it was explained to them by their clergy and hierarchs, if it even was.

Many years,

Neil

Dear Brothers Neil and Andrew,

Christ is risen from the dead!

When I hear descriptions like this:
"Once a decision was made by the ecclesio-political leadership (which was likely as often made for political as theological reasons), it was accepted and followed by the rank and file faithful to whom it usually had little, if any, practical significance and as often made no noticeable (to them) difference in their religious life or observance. The average church-goer knew little and cared less about whether or not the "Filioque" was included or not and, to the extent that they understood or were aware of the concept of Petrine primacy, would likely have thought of/understood it primarily in political terms (i.e., an effort by the West to dominate the East - or vice-versa, depending on who was urging which allegiance) - not unlikely how it was explained to them by their clergy and hierarchs, if it even was."

I can't help thinking of the Christological debates and how, according to some of the Church Fathers and historians, it was dramatically different. You say no one cares about these theological distinctions (e.g. the Filioque) whereas the Fathers say in their time you couldn't go anywhere without people debating about Christology, no matter how common these people were. How do you guys explain this difference? What happened to Christians in later generations that they no longer took interest in theological questions?

Trusting in Christ's Resurrection,
Ghazar

p.s. and how come the Italo-Greek Catholic Church is made up of everything but Italians and Greeks?

Bill,

Originally there were Italo-Byzantine, Italo-Greek, and Italo-Albanian communities. Despite the fact that the terms commonly used these days are either Italo-Greek or Italo-Albanian, they aren't really separately identifiable ecclesial entities any longer, and the three together now constitute the Italo-Greek-Albanian Church sui iuis.

I'm unsure of the precise ethnic make-up of Our Lady of Wisdom (the Las Vegas parish established in the Van Nuys Eparchy). (Thea Logica, one of our members, who is a parishoner there may be able to speak to this.) I do believe it's principally comprised of Sicilian Italians, who commonly include Italo-Greeks and Albanians among their numbers; but, it seems likely that it will eventually take on a similar make-up as the US Byzantine Russian parishes (the faithful of whom are rarely ethnic Russian).

On the other hand, my impression of Our Lady of Grace Society (Staten Island) is that its faithful are very definitely a mix of Italians of Byzantine heritage (a barely discernible ethnic subset, who are today identifiable primarily by surname and place of origin), Italo-Greeks, and Arberesh (Italo-Albanians).

The faithful of the two Italian Eparchies: Lungro degli Italo-Albanesi and Piana degli Albanesi are descendents of the early Italo-Greek and the Arberesh communities. The small community of faithful attached to the Territorial Abbey and Exarchic Monastery of Santa Maria di Grottaferrata are generally thought to likely represent the last surviving remnant of the early Italo-Byzantines.

It's too early in the day (or late in the night)to really write well on your other point (remember that, if my post makes no sense ), but the short answer (from my perspective) is that, by the time these issues were being debated, Christianity was no longer a nascent religion practiced by a relatively small core of faithful, intimately involved with their clergy and hierarchs. By then, it was the overwhelming religion of the masses, many of whom were uneducated peasantry.

I may be wrong, but that's my suspicion. (I leave to Andrew his interpretation from the Albanian perspective - he represented the Italo-Greek/Albanians so well for so long, before we had anyone else here; my view is obviously that of an outsider looking in .)

Many years,

Neil

p.s. Bill, as one who was Armenian Catholic, do you have any personal thoughts or insights on why Armenian Catholics, after a quarter century as an Exarchate, don't yet have a US Eparchy?
(I posed this earlier, during the discussion of the status of St. Ann's Cathedral, but you didn't pick up on it.)

Cristo e` risorto! Veramente e` risorto!
Dear Friends,
Some of you may not know that there are a few towns in Calabria and Apulia that continue to speak Greek along with Italian. The Greek is endangered as the older generation passes. Most scholars seem to trace the language back to the Byzantine presence, although it seems to have some characteristics related to ancient Greek.
Also many of the dialects of southern Italy contain Greek words. An example is from my parents' Calabrese dialect: the word for roof tile in Italian is "tegola," but in their dialect they us "cerimida," which is from the Greek.
And of course, many of the Italo-Albanians speak their Albanian language.

Neil wrote:
p.s. Bill, as one who was Armenian Catholic, do you have any personal thoughts or insights on why Armenian Catholics, after a quarter century as an Exarchate, don't yet have a US Eparchy?
(I posed this earlier, during the discussion of the status of St. Ann's Cathedral, but you didn't pick up on it.)

reply:
Sorry I missed this, Neil. In truth, regargding the answer to your question, I have no idea. I'm confused by the whole relationship between Eastern Catholics and Old Rome. I don't understand it. Now that I'm not an Eastern Catholic anymore, I don't have to.. so really don't even try. :-) But one thing I think I can offer is the point that Armenian Catholics, to my understanding and information, have only been an exarchate in the U.S. and Canada since 1992. So we're only talking about fourteen years.

Trusting in Christ's Resurrection,
Wm. Ghazar Der-Ghazarian
Looys Kreesdosee
www.geocities.com/derghazar [geocities.com]