PETRICCA, ANGELO
Franciscan controversialist of the Conventuals, born at Sonnino (Lazio), died at Rome on 10 December 1673.
Doctor of Theology (1631), he was sent by the Holy See on a special mission to the Shah of Persia to safeguard the Christian communities of the East; but failing to reach Persia in time, Propaganda entrusted him with the missions of Moldavia and Wallachia, where in 1632 he served as vice-prefect and apostolic commissioner in Moldavia. Provincial minister of Hungary (1633), he presided in 1636 over the provincial chapter at Pettau in Styria and returned to Italy. He was then provincial minister of the East, vicar patriarchal of Constantinople, and apostolic prefect of Moldavia and Wallachia from 30 January 1638. He secured the conversion of the city of Campalung; he resolutely opposed the union between Greeks and Calvinists promoted by the schismatic patriarch Cyril Lucaris, and succeeded in bringing his successor, Cyril Veria, into union with Rome (1638). Returning to Rome after the election of Innocent X, he became professor of moral theology at the SS. Apostoli, consultor to Propaganda (with special responsibility for revising the Ecologion or Ritual of the Greek Church), provincial minister of the Roman province from 1661, and procurator general of the Order (1665–68).
Principal works: *Turris David seu de militante ac triumphante Ecclesia* (Rome 1647); *De appellationibus omnium ecclesiarum ad S. Petri Cathedram* (ibid. 1649); *Disputationes adversus haereses et aliquorum Graecorum errores* (ibid. 1650); *De potestate Apostolorum* (ibid. 1650); *De Regno Christi* (ibid. 1671); *De triplici philosophia Aristotelis, rationali, naturali et divina ad mentem Doctoris Scoti* (ibid. 1672).