Italo-Byzantine Rite (ITALO-BIZANTINO, RITO) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VII, p. 333

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

ITALO-BYZANTINE RITE. – It may be divided into two branches, the Italo-Greek and the Italo-Albanian. The first designation refers to that rite introduced or renewed in Sicily and southern Italy with the arrival in the 7th century of many exiles from the Near East, who had fled before the Arabs, or rather with the establishment of Byzantine imperial rule in these regions. It experienced its finest flowering from the 9th to the 12th century; among the many liturgical poets, it is sufficient to name St. Giuseppe l’Innografo. The presence of the liturgies of St. James, St. Mark, and St. Peter, as well as that of its own Typicon, proves that the rite of

Article illustration — (ca. A. Medea, *Gli agresi delle cripte aromatiche popiche*, Rome 1909, pl. 38) ITALO-GRECI - Entrance to the crypt of S. Procopio with dedicatory inscription (late 11th century) - Fasano.

The rite practiced there at Constantinople was not exclusive. In the struggle against Latinization from the 13th to the 16th century, it was to suffer extremely serious damage. Moreover, the arrival of numerous Albanians gave the liturgy in use in the parishes a more Constantinopolitan character, while the ancient Italo-Greek rite was preserved in the Basilian monasteries, of which, in the 19th century, only one remained, that of Grottaferrata; there the rite was restored to its original purity, thanks to the energetic and generous interventions of the pontiffs (cf. A. Rocchi, La badia di Grottaferrata, Rome 1904, p. 74), and thus experienced a new flowering.

The peculiarities of this rite, which has not yet been sufficiently studied, are recorded in numerous codices preserved in the libraries of Grottaferrata, the Vatican, and Messina; then, for the period of its decline, in the books printed at Rome or Grottaferrata: the three Liturgie (1601), the Liturgicon (similar to the Latins’ plenary Missal; 1683), the Orologion (1677 and 1772), the Salterio (1685), the small Euchologion (1831), and, after the renewal, the Orologion (1950). The Office indicates a type distinctly more ancient than that of the Byzantine rite of today.

The italo-albanese became the rite of the regions of Calabria and Sicily when the refugees from Albania mingled with the few faithful who still practiced the Byzantine rite there, that is, after the 15th century. The liturgical language did not change, because in Albania itself only Greek was in use; new melodies probably arose in liturgical singing, and these are still preserved (cf. F. Falsone, I canti ecclesiastici greco-siculi, Padua 1936, lithograph). Gregory XIII (1573), Clement VIII (1595), and Benedict XIV (1742) issued various instructions to regulate the rite. The three Liturgie had been printed at Rome in 1526, and in 1598 a kind of Breviary called Anthologion, compiled by Antonio Arcudio, was published.

When the Holy See established a commission for the edition of the liturgical books of the Eastern Churches, the Triodion appeared in 1724, with the deliberately false indication of Bologna; A. Arcudio’s Anthologion was reprinted in 9 volumes in 1738, and the Euchologion appeared in 1754; on this occasion Benedict XIV issued the bull Ex quo primum (1 April 1756), in which he gives the history of this edition and explains at length certain ritual observances proper to the Eastern Churches. Then, from 1873 to 1902, all the liturgical books of the Byzantine rite, with the exception of the Typicon, were printed in 16 volumes; the edition of the Orologion was resumed in 1937, and an Archieraticon and an Aghiasmatarion are in preparation. From all these books it is evident that the Italo-Albanian rite differs in no way, as regards texts and rubrics, from that used at Constantinople or in Greece.

BIBL.: P. P. Rodotà, Dell'origine, progresso e stato presente del rito greco in Italia, osservato dai Greci, monaci basiliani e albanesi, Rome 1758-63; T. Toscani, Ad Typica Graecorum ac praesertim ad Typicum Cryptoferratense S. Bartholomaei abbat. animadversiones, there 1864; C. Korolevsky, Il rito bizantino dei secc. X-XIV. Studio storico e liturgico, in Bollettino della badia greca di Grottaferrata, new series, 1 (1947), pp. 5-16, 144-54; 2 (1948), pp. 76-86; T. Minisci, Le preghiere ἀνασπαστικοί dei codici criptensi, ibid., pp. 65-75, 117-26; 3 (1949), pp. 3-10, 61-66, 121-32; 185-94; 4 (1950), pp. 3-14; anon., Rito della solenne professione dei Megaloschimi secondo il Typikon di Grottaferrata, Grottaferrata 1941.

The following articles are also cited on account of their extensive bibliographies: C. Giannelli, Un documento sconosciuto della polemica tra Greci e Latini intorno alla formula battesimale, in Or. Chr. periodica, 10 (1944), pp. 150-67; G. Garitte, Deux manuscrits italo-grecs, in Miscellanea G. Mercati, III, Vatican City 1946, pp. 16-40; A. Strittmatter, Liturgical Latinism, in a Twelfth century greek Euchology, ibid., pp. 41-64; S. Salaville, Studia Orientalia liturgico-theologica, Rome 1940, pp. 138-42 (on Arcudio’s Anthologion); P. De Meester, Catechismo liturgico del rito bizantino, Pompeii 1929; C. Korolevsky, L'édition romaine des Métiers grecques, in Bollettino della badia di Grottaferrata, 3 (1949), pp. 30-40, 153-62, 225-47; 4 (1950), pp. 15-16. Alfonso Raes