REGGIO CALABRIA, ARCHDIOCESE of — Archdiocese and capital city of the province of the same name. It has an area of approximately 660 sq. km, with a population of 212,960, of whom 211,960 are Catholics, distributed among 100 parishes with 157 diocesan priests and 34 religious priests; 8 male and 43 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 336).
The city of R. C., at the southern foothills of the Aspromonte, on the Strait of Messina, repeatedly destroyed by earthquakes, the last of which occurred in 1908, has always been rebuilt, larger than before. Apart from its fabulous origins and its history under the Oenotrians and Ausonians, R. was certainly a Chalcidian colony from the middle of the 8th century B.C. and developed until it became one of the most important republics of Magna Graecia. After the Second Punic War, it passed under Roman rule, and the Romans established a colony there under the name of Rhegium Tulli. But its position made it a bridge between West and East; its Latin inscriptions, writes P. Orsi, are equal in number to the Greek ones. At the fall of the Empire it passed to the Goths and shortly afterward to the Byzantines, who remained there amid alternating fortunes until 1060, despite frequent raids by the Saracens, who repeatedly plundered and destroyed it in the 9th and 10th centuries. The first Normans established the seats of their counties at S. Marco and Mileto, and the Swabians failed to appreciate its strategic position, so that R. declined until the 16th century, when its revival began.
Regional and local historians attribute its first evangelization to s. Paolo, who nevertheless remained there for one day, according to Act. 28. 13. The acts of the martyrs, s. Stefano of Nicea, first bishop of R., who is said to have suffered martyrdom together with Suera, presumed bishop of Locri, and the ss. virgins Perpetua, Felicita and Agnese, are no earlier than the 10th century. Nevertheless, R. did not take long to embrace the faith of Christ, so much so that it is mentioned even by s. Girolamo.
No authentic name of a bishop is known before the 6th century. Marco, «episcopus Calabriae», who took part in the Council of Nicaea in 325, was not bishop of R., because Calabria was then the Salentine peninsula; and that Ilario, who in 430 held a synod against the bishop of Umbriatico, is an anachronism. Lanzoni also rejects the existence of that Sisinnio, remembered for 532 in the life of s. Placido by Leone Ostiense, a late and fabulous work. In the Register of S. Gregorio M., there finally appear Lucio, prior to 590, Bonifacio, who had much to contend with his clergy, from 502 to 602, and finally Paolino, bishop of Tauriano, who temporarily administered the see. Several successors from the 7th and 8th centuries appear in the ecumenical councils of those times, and the bishop Giovanni was legate of Pope Agatone at the Council of Constantinople
of 680. At the Second Council of Nicaea in 787 there is also the bishop Costantino, who signs in Greek simply as bishop. At that time the iconoclast emperors had already taken all the bishoprics of Calabria away from Rome in order to subject them to the patriarchate of Constantinople. Through their action the ecclesiastical province of Calabria was created, with R. as the metropolitan see of all the other sees in the region.
Indeed, in the earliest Notitiae graecne episcopatum, from the time of Leo the Armenian (813–20), the metropolitan see of R., called the Eparchy of Calabria, comprised all the Calabrian dioceses, namely Bivona, Tauriano, Locri, Rossano, Squillace, Tropea, Amantea, Crotone, Cosenza, Nicotera, Bisignano, Nicastro and Cassano. But in the time of Leo VI the Philosopher (886–902), the new metropolitan see of S. Severina was created, with five tiny suffragan sees. Another change occurred under the Normans: Mileto replaced Tauriano and Vibona and became immediately subject; Amantea was incorporated into Tropea; Nicotera was included in the territory of Mileto and was not rebuilt until 1392; Rossano gained autonomy; and Cosenza, a suffragan of R. in the Greek documents and of Salerno in the Latin ones, eventually became a metropolitan see, with the recently founded Martirano as its suffragan. R., on the other hand, acquired two small Greek dioceses founded at that time, Oppido and Bova, previously included in its own territory; later the diocese of Catanzaro was founded at the expense of Squillace and likewise placed under R. Its metropolitan rights over all these dioceses were confirmed by Alexander III in a bull of 1165 (Ughelli, IX, p. 235; PL 200, 400). In 1818, Nicotera was united in perpetuity to Tropea, Bisignano to S. Marco and declared immediately subject to the Holy See; finally, Catanzaro was declared an archdiocese in 1927.
Many Greek monasteries flourished in the territory of R., foremost among them those of S. Nicola Calimizzi, S. Maria Trapezomata, S. Aniceto, S. Salvatore di Castaneto, S. Antonio de Archi, S. Maria de Terreti, etc., which continued their existence until the 16th century. Calabrian-Greek monasticism had worthy representatives in the ss. Cipriano, Cosma, Vitale and Arsenio of R., s. Tommaso of Terreti and, above all, s. Elia of R., known as the Speleota, whose fame reached even the East.
R. was one of the first dioceses of Calabria to be Latinized by the Normans; but Greek elements survived for a long time in the city and throughout the territory, including in the 16th and 17th centuries, as is shown by the pastoral visitations of the period, especially those of Annibale d'Afflitto around 1600. The Franciscans arrived there as early as 1221; they were followed by the Dominicans, who opened a school there in the 16th century, the Carmelites, the Augustinians, the Minims and the Jesuits, who had a flourishing college there. The Capuchin movement was begun in Calabria, contemporaneously with Matteo da Bascia, by the two Reggio Observants, the friars Ludovico Cumi and Bernardino Molizzi, known as il Giorgio. Ecclesiastics of great renown included: Matteo Saraceni, Franciscan and archbishop of Rossano in the 15th century, inquisitor of the Kingdom of Naples; Giuseppe Morisani, a very learned historian and archaeologist; De Cara (v.); and Antonio De Lorenzo, ecclesiastical and civil historian.
The ancient monuments of R. were destroyed by earthquakes; the Castle and the sanctuary of the Consolazione were partly spared. The following, by contrast, are modern: the beautiful Cathedral, with an original pulpit and statues by Francesco Ierace of Polistena; the church of the Vittoria, in the neoclassical style, by Piacentini, who was also responsible for the Palazzo del Museo nazionale della Magna Grecia; and, finally, the grandiose Regional Seminary, which houses almost all the seminarians of Calabria after the fire at the one in Catanzaro.
R. has a long and glorious succession of holy, zealous and learned prelates. Worthy of mention is s. Cirillo, a Basilian, whose reputation for holiness drew s. Leone from Ravenna; he was later made bishop of Catania. In the 11th century, in a Greek document, the archbishop Nicola of R. is called «metropolita della Calabria e della Sicilia», perhaps because on the nearby island the ecclesiastical hierarchy had been almost annihilated by the Saracens, and he may have received from Constantinople the task of watching over the Churches beyond the Strait. In the 16th century the archbishop of R. was Gaspare Ricciulli del Fosso of Rogliano, of the Minims, who attended the Council of Trent and died in the reputation of holiness. His successor, too, Annibale d'Afflitto of Palermo, was renowned as a saint and reformed the clergy and the people. The Benedictine Rangerio was the first cardinal appointed to head the archdiocese, from 1091 to 1121; Lando or Landone was an adviser to Frederick II, employed by the popes on delicate missions; there were the Franciscan fra Gentile; Tommaso Ruffo, son of Pietro, count of Catanzaro, greatly loved by Innocent IV; Pietro Filomarini, a Neapolitan; Pietro Isvales, a Spaniard, cardinal of S. Ciriaco; Ag. Trivulzio, also a cardinal; Gir. Centeglie; Giov. Andrea Morreale; and Gennaro Portanova, the last Reggio prelate to receive the purple (d. 1908); Lanza (v.). — Vedi tav. XXXII.
BIBLI: Ughelli, IX, coll. 421-56; G. Fiore, Calabria illustrata, II, Napoli 1743, pp. 287-95; A. Ferrante, Additamenta ad Ughellium de archiepiscopi Ubiquis, ivi 1757; D. Spanò-Baluni, Storia di R. C., II, ivi 1857, pp. 233-53; Hieroclis Syncelemus et notitiae Graecae episcopatum, Berlino 1866; A. De Lorenzo, Mem. da servire alla storia sacra e civile di R. e di Calabria, Reggio Calabria 1872-79; id., Variazione della topografia religiosa e civile dell'arcidiocesi di R. C., Reggio Calabria 1880; id., Monografie di storia reggina e calabrese, ivi 1888; id., Un terzo manipolo di monografie e memorie reggine e calabresi, Siena 1899; G. Minasi, Le chiese di Calabria, Napoli 1896; id., Regesti pont. per l'arcivescovo di R., in Riv. st. calabrese, 11 (1903), pp. 195-208; C. Guarna-Logoteta, Cronaca dei vescovi e arci. di R. C., ibid., 7 (1898-99); L. Duchesne, Les Évêches d'Italie et l'invasion lombarde, in Mélanges, d'arch. et d'hist., 22 (1902), p. 109 sgg.; R. Cotroneo, Storia della cattedrale di R. C., Napoli 1903; F. Lanzoni, La prima introduzione dell'episcopato e del cristianesimo nella Lucania e nei Bruzi, in Arch. stor. calabrese, 5 (1917), pp. 3-25; Lanzoni, I, pp. 209-20; P. De Nava, Conventi di monaci e di monache in R. nel medioevo e nell'età moderna, in Bruttum, 19 (1940), p. 3 sgg.; id., L'antica cattedrale, ibid., 20 (1941), p. 7 sgg.; A. Lipinski, Calabria bizantina, in Arch. stor. Calabria Lucania, 15 (1946), p. 79 sgg. Francesco Russo