www.byzcath.org Forums Thread Like Summary - Italo-Greek Catholic Church

Does anyone know of good books on the Italo-Greek Catholic Church? I heard that this is the only Byzantine Church that maintained continuous communion with Rome. Thank you.

In Christ,
Anthony

Mexican,

Originally, there were two separate communities; the 2 Eparchies represent the Italo-Albanian heritage, while the Exarchic Abbey is the last true jurisdictional remnant of the Italo-Greek heritage; all are now treated as a single entity.
There Churches suffered a great deal from active and passive latinization on the part of Rome. An idea of the forms this took can be gotten by reading the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia piece on them, which is very descriptive and echoes the Latin triumphalism of the time, as noted above.

Italo-Greeks [newadvent.org]

There is also an excellent discussion at the website of Our Lady of Grace Society of how these influences affected the Churches.

Italo-Albanians [byzantines.net]

There seems to be very general agreement that this Church has been very successful in restoring and maintaining the richness of its Byzantine heritage. The 3 jurisdictions held an inter-eparchial synod in 1940 to assure consistency of liturgical practice; a delegation from the Albanian Orthodox Church participated as observers. In 1973, an official delegation from the Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church visited the Eparchy of Piana degli Albenisi and, afterwards, spoke with high praise of the purity and orthodoxy of the liturgical practice of the Italo-Albanians. Similar praise has been accorded to the Abbey.

The Abbey uses Greek primarily in its Liturgy, with some Italian. The Eparchies use Albanian, Greek, and some Italian.

As Andrew notes, while the Church has maintained continuous communion with Rome, it has a unique history in that the Italo-Albanian component of it came into being when Albanian Orthodox emigrated to Italy at a time of union between Constantinople and Rome and were, for a time, subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople, despite being in Rome's back yard. That aspect of its history is discussed at Our Lady of Grace Society's website, as well.
Italy\'s Byzantine Catholics [byzantines.net]

Many years,

Neil

I am finding the topic of Italo-Greek Byzantines fascinating to say the least...my dad was Sicilian and Roman Catholic, but so many of the things he did, that never made sense when I was a kid, make sense now that I am in the East...the way he crossed himself with three fingers, his strong insistance that Our Lady grew up in the Temple and that She fell asleep before the Assumption...he would never say that She died. I am starting to realize that even among the RC's of Sicily there must have been a strong Eastern influence that maybe some,like my dad, just didn't understand. So much of Eastern spirituality is so natural to me because of how he raised us...I wish I had gone East before he died and I really wish we had known about the Italo-Greek mission on Staten Island back then...I have a feeling my dad would have felt as home in the East as I do.

Vie