LIPARI, DIOCESE of. — City and diocese on the island of the same name in the Aeolian Archipelago. The diocese is suffragan to Messina and has 20,000 inhabitants, all Catholics, with 26 parishes, 48 diocesan priests and 3 religious priests, one seminary, one male religious community and 4 female ones (Annuario Pontificio, 1951, p. 249).
It appears that in the first half of the 6th century there was a monastery of Latin monks in L., while in 806 there were Greek monks. The Benedictine monastery of S. Bartolomeo was founded by Ruggero di Sicilia (1088) after he had expelled the Saracens; the abbey church was erected as a cathedral by Urban II in 1094 (PL 179, 722), at the time of Bishop Gilberto.
The legendary passio of s. Alfio and companions identifies Agatone as the first bishop, in the time of Licinius, but this is confirmed by no other document. Certain are Bishop Augusto at the beginning, and Venanzio in the middle of the 6th century; while at the end there was an Agatone (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 931 and 1258). Pope Gregory I summoned L. to Rome and had it administered by Paolino, Bishop of Tauriana. In 597, however, there was a new bishop whom the same Pontiff invited to
go to Rome. Bishop Pellegrino took part in the Lateran Council of 649 and Basilio in the Second Council of Nicaea. F. Gattola was appointed by Boniface IX as 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. Also remembered are Bartolomeo da Salerno in 1432; Antonio Giustiniani in 1564; the Franciscan A. Vitali in 1599. Urban VIII in 1627 elected Msgr. G. Candidi, making L. directly subject to the Holy See. There followed, among others, Benedetto di Gerace (1660), F. Arati (1663), the Benedictine N. M. Tedeschi, as well as Msgr. G. M. Visconte Proto (1839), promoted to Cefalù in 1844.