BASILIANS OF ITALY (ITALO-GREEK). — The term “Basilian Order” is of Western origin, having arisen in Italy in the Middle Ages to designate and distinguish the Italo-Greek monks who particularly followed the ascetic precepts of St Basil the Great.
The present Congregation of the Basilian Monks of Italy or of St Mary of Grottaferrata is the heir and continuator of Italo-Greek monasticism, which was introduced into Italy in the 6th century under Justinian and developed with the progressive Byzantinization of the Italian provinces of the Byzantine Empire, encouraged by the influx of refugee monks from Syria and Egypt beginning in the 7th century due to the Arab invasion. This influx increased because of the iconoclastic persecution of the 8th century, since the iconoclastic laws never took effect in the Byzantine provinces of southern Italy.
The Arab occupation of Sicily in the 9th century led to the concentration of Italo-Greek monasticism in Calabria, Apulia, and Lucania, but there was a subsequent return to Sicily in the Norman age, when the monasteries were restored, bringing great renown to the Byzantine Church in Italy.
Remarkable holiness flourished in Italo-Greek monasticism even before the Normans. The most representative figures are: St Elias the Cave-Dweller, St Christopher of Colliano, St Saba the Younger, St Leoluca, St Nicodemus of Mammola, St Vitalis of Castronuovo, and St John Terista. But the great luminary who, throughout his long life, gathered a vast number of monks around him and transformed them into saints and scholars was St Nilus of Rossano (910–1004), founder of the monastery of Grottaferrata (q.v.).
It may be asserted with full truth that with St Nilus and his disciples—Blessed Paul, St Proclus, and St Bartholomew of Rossano—Italo-Greek monasticism, at a time when the eremitical system generally prevailed, achieved a true and perfect cenobitic organization, which had already in some measure been realized in the monastic center of Mercurion, the “Athos of Byzantine Calabria,” where St Nilus himself was formed under the guidance of Santino. The great reorganizers of Italo-Greek monasticism in the Norman period, such as St Bartholomew of Simeri (q.v.) and St Luke of Messina, applied the teachings of the great Nilus, which remained alive in the monastery of Grottaferrata, which prospered in the shadow of the Apostolic See and served as a center of attraction for Italo-Greek monks.
The golden age of Italo-Greek monasticism coincided with the Norman domination (1059–1098). The Norman princes were indeed patrons of cenobitic life. Thus arose the monasteries of the Patir, near Rossano, and of the Most Holy Saviour in Messina.
From that time onward, part of the monasteries organized themselves into two extensive monastic groups: one, headed by the archimandrite of the Most Holy Saviour of Messina, included most of the monasteries of Sicily and some of Calabria, numbering 49 in all; the second, that of SS Elias and Anastasius of Carbone, embraced 36 monasteries in Lucania and Calabria.
Italo-Greek monasticism continued to flourish under the Swabian domination (1198–1266), but during the subsequent Angevin rule (1266–82) a period of adversity and decline began, caused both by the oppressions of the new rulers and by the progressive diminution of the Greek element, which was assimilating to the Italian environment.
The reduction in the number of monks that followed, along with the forgetting of Eastern monastic traditions and the Greek language, led to the transfer of some monasteries to Latin religious orders and the abandonment of others. The serious decline in religious discipline could not be eliminated or halted by the apostolic visitations that followed, beginning with the first prescribed by Pope Honorius III in 1221. Nor was the celebrated Cardinal Bessarion able to achieve this when he strove to reform the Order. Many monasteries were placed in commendam, and finally it was thought to suppress the Basilian Order in Italy altogether. That this danger was averted is due to Gregory XIII, with the assistance of the two distinguished cardinals Guglielmo Sirleto and Giulio Santoro.
On Pentecost Sunday in 1579, the true birth of the Order took place with the convocation of the general chapter of the Greek monks of Italy at St Philarète of Seminara, near Miletus in Calabria, followed on 1 November of the same year by the bull Benedictus Dominus of Gregory XIII, which constituted the Congregation of Basilians of Italy and that of Spain, conferring upon them an organization similar to that of the Benedictine Congregation of Monte Cassino. Efforts were also made to reduce the abuses of commendams by separating the table of the commendatory from the monastic refectory, as was practiced with the Benedictines. The Order thus reformed resumed its life. The renewed Basilian Congregation was Italo-Spanish, since it also included the Spanish branch of the Basilians of the Latin rite, which had been established in Spain around 1556 and, while dependent on the same superior general, developed and exercised local influence. This branch was suppressed by the minister Espartero in 1855.
Yet the restored Basilian monasticism of Italy lacked, in reality, the essential character of Byzantine monasticism. With the exception of the monastery of Mezzojuso (Palermo), founded in 1609 by the Albanian Andrea Reres, where the monks were Italo-Albanians born and living in the Byzantine rite, in all the other monasteries, including that of Grottaferrata, the Byzantine rite, though retaining some archaic Italo-Greek characteristics, had been seriously altered. Many monasteries adopted the Roman rite in its entirety; the monks could easily change rites. Indeed, in 1709, the abbot general Pietro Menniti petitioned Clement XI for the complete Latinization of the Order; this request was refused, as was another renewed to Pope Benedict XIV in 1746 by the general Diego Del Pozzo.
In 1784, the minister of the King of Naples, Bernardo Tanucci,
and the progressive diminution of the Greek element, which was assimilating to the Italian environment.
suppressed numerous monasteries located in the continental part of the kingdom. Only those in Sicily and at Grottaferrata remained. Finally, the law of 1866 entirely dissolved the Order, which would have disappeared had not the monks of the monastery of Grottaferrata, preserved as a national monument, obtained permission to remain as its custodians. The rite observed in the Abbey, however, was a mixture of Byzantine and Roman elements.
To lay the foundations for a revival of Byzantine monasticism in Italy, a reform was imperative. This was finally decided by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide for Oriental Affairs in its plenary session of 12 July 1880, and despite the grave difficulties encountered, it was confirmed by decree of 12 April 1882. A major role in preparing and implementing the reform was played by the learned abbot of Grottaferrata, Giuseppe Cozza-Luzzi (q.v.), later vice-librarian of the Holy Roman Church. His successor, Abbot Arsenio Pellegrini, completed the reform during his long tenure (1883–1917), thus organizing the present Congregation of the Basilian Monks of Italy.
propr. E. Jusil d'I. of St Mary of Grottaferrata, which received its first constitutions in 1900.
Almost completed the work of reform, a first step toward expansion followed: in 1920 the historic monastery of Mezzoiuso was reopened, where the Congregation has its novitiate. Another foundation began in 1932 at S. Basile in Calabria, in the Italo-Albanian diocese of Lungro; and in 1935, after more than a century, the college of S. Basilio in Rome was reopened for the philosophical-theological formation of young monks. Finally, in 1938, to respond to the wishes of the Holy See, the monks established themselves in Albania, where they founded the missions of Fieri and Argirocastro, from which they were later expelled. In 1948 they opened a house at Piana degli Albanesi (Palermo).
Pius XI, with the bull *Pervetustum Cryptaeferratae coenobium* of 26 Sept. 1937, granted the Abbey its definitive juridical status by elevating it to an Exarchal Monastery, that is, an *Abbatia nullius*, immediately subject to the Holy See.