LIPARI, DIOCESE OF. — City and diocese on the island of the same name in the Aeolian archipelago. The diocese is a suffragan of Messina, has 20,000 inhabitants, all Catholic, with 26 parishes, 48 diocesan priests and 3 regular priests, a seminary, one male religious community and four female ones (Annuario Pontificio, 1951, p. 249).
It seems that in the first half of the 6th century there was a monastery of Latin monks on Lipari, while in 806 there were Greek monks. The Benedictine monastery of St. Bartholomew was founded by Roger of Sicily (1088) after having driven out the Saracens; the abbey church was erected into a cathedral by Urban II in 1094 (PL 179, 722), at the time of Bishop Gilbert.
The legendary passio of St. Alfio and companions indicates Agatho as the first bishop at the time of Licinius, not confirmed by any other document. Certain is Bishop Augustus at the beginning, and Venantius in the middle of the 6th century; while at the end there is an Agatho (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 931 and 1258). Pope Gregory I summoned to Rome and had Lipari administered by Paulinus, Bishop of Tauriana. In 597, however, there was a new bishop invited by the same Pontiff to go to Rome. Bishop Pellegrino attended the Lateran Council of 649 and Basil the Second Council of Nicaea. F. Gattola was appointed by Boniface IX bishop also of Patti (1397); but in 1399 the same Pope with the apostolic constitutions Apostolatus officium and Dudum ex certis separated the two sees. Among others, Bartolomeo da Salerno is recorded in 1432; Antonio Giustiniani in 1564; the Franciscan A. Vitali in 1599. Urban VIII in 1627 appointed Mons. G. Candidi, making Lipari directly subject to the Holy See. Among others who followed were Benedetto of Gerace (1660), F. Arati (1663), N. M. Tedeschi, a Benedictine like Mons. G. M. Visconte Proto (1839), who was promoted to Cefalù in 1844.