CROTONE, Diocese of. - In the province of Catanzaro. It was a very powerful republic, founded by the Achaeans and Corinthians, rival of Sybaris, which it definitively destroyed in 510 B.C. In 277 B.C. it was garrisoned by the Romans; but, in the Second Punic War, it sided with Hannibal, who embarked from its port in 203 B.C. to return to Africa. In 194 B.C. a Roman colony was established there. In the Middle Ages it was garrisoned by the Byzantines. The Angevins granted it to the Ruffo of Catanzaro (1284), who developed its agricultural economy. Charles V granted it extensive privileges, built the castle there and strengthened its port. In recent years it has undergone notable development as an industrial center and as an agricultural market; its port is very active.
Legend holds that Christianity was introduced there by Dionysius the Areopagite, who would have become its first bishop. Setting aside such unfounded reports, it is nonetheless certain that C. ranks among the oldest dioceses of Calabria. Gams records a bishop Flavianus in 537. Pope Vigilius in 551 names the bishop Jordanes, whom some identify with the historian who continued Cassiodorus. In 592 St. Gregory the Great entrusted its administration to the bishop of Squillace. In 597 C. was sacked by the Lombards and the holy Pontiff ransomed its inhabitants, who had been enslaved by the barbarians.
In the 9th century the Byzantines reduced it almost to nothing, creating within its territory an entire metropolis, S. Severina, with 5 suffragan sees, erected at the expense of C., which was declared a suffragan of Reggio, with a very small strip of coastal territory. Such it remained until 1818, when the territory of Isola Capo Rizzuto was annexed to it.
C. long maintained the Greek rite. In 1217 Honorius III was forced to grant its bishop Giovanni permission to celebrate in Greek and in Latin; in 1254 Innocent IV placed at its head the Franciscan Nicolò di Durazzo, «in utraque lingua peritus», who was later sent by Urban IV as nuncio to Michael Palaeologus.
The Cathedral is in neoclassical style: it contains the sanctuary of the Madonna di Capocolonna, which takes its name from a surviving column of the temple of Juno Lacinia. The seminary was founded by bishop G. Caraffa (1664-90).
From 1928 to 1947 it remained united ad personam to the archbishop of S. Severina; at present the roles are reversed. The diocese of C. covers 150 sq km; it has 9 parishes, its population is about 40,000 inhabitants, with 20 diocesan priests and 2 regulars (1948).
Bibliography4 works
Francesco Russo