CROTONE, DIOCESE of. — In the province of Catanzaro. It was a very powerful republic, founded by the Achaeans and Corinthians, and a rival of Sybaris, which it definitively destroyed in 510 B.C. In 277 B.C. it was garrisoned by the Romans; but, during the Second Punic War, it took Hannibal’s side, and he embarked in 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 promoted the agricultural economy. Charles V granted it extensive privileges, built the castle there, and developed its port. In recent years it has undergone considerable growth as an industrial centre and agricultural market; its port is very active.
Legend has it that Christianity was introduced there by Dionysius the Areopagite, who is said to have become its first bishop. Setting aside such unfounded reports, it is nevertheless certain that C. is among the oldest dioceses of Calabria. Gams recalls a bishop Flavianus in 537. In 551 Pope Vigilius names 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, whom the barbarians had enslaved.
In the ninth century the Byzantines reduced it almost to nothing by creating within its territory an entire metropolitan province, S. Severina, with five suffragan sees, established at C.’s expense; C. itself was declared a suffragan of Reggio, with only a very small strip of coastal territory. It remained so until 1818, when the territory of Isola Capo Rizzuto was added to II.
C. retained the Greek rite for a long time. In 1217 Honorius III was compelled to grant its bishop Giovanni permission to celebrate in Greek and Latin; in 1254 Innocent IV placed the Franciscan Nicolò of Durazzo at its head, «in utraque lingua peritus», who was later sent by Urban IV as nuncio to Michael Palaiologos.
The Cathedral is in the Neoclassical style; it contains the sanctuary of 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 with the archbishop of S. Severina; at present the arrangement is reversed. The diocese of C. covers 150 sq km; it has nine parishes, and its population is approximately 40,000, with 20 diocesan priests and two religious priests (1948).