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 regulars, a seminary, one male religious community and 4 female ones (Annuario Pontificio, 1951, p. 249).
It seems that in the first half of the 6th century there was in L. a monastery of Latin monks, while in 806 there were Greek monks. The Benedictine monastery of St. Bartholomew was founded by Roger of Sicily (1088) after he had 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. Alphius and companions indicates as first bishop Agatho in 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 him to Rome and had L. administered by Paulinus, bishop of Tauriana. In 597, however, there was a new bishop, invited by the same Pontiff to go to Rome. Bishop Peregrinus took part in the Lateran Council of 649 and Basil in 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. Mention is still made of Bartholomew of 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. Then there were, among others, Benedict of Gerace (1660), F. Arati (1663), N. M. Tedeschi, a Benedictine, as well as Msgr. G. M. Visconte Proto (1839), promoted to Cefalù in 1844.
Bibliography3 works
Enrico Josi