REGGIO CALABRIA, ARCHDIOCESE of - Archdiocese and capital city of the province of the same name. It has an area of about 660 sq. km., with a population of 212,960 inhabitants, of whom 211,960 are Catholics distributed in 100 parishes with 157 diocesan priests and 34 regulars; 8 male religious communities and 43 female (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 336).
The city of R. C., on the southern slopes of the Aspromonte, on the Strait of Messina, repeatedly destroyed by earthquakes, the last of which was in 1908, has always been rebuilt, larger than before. Apart from its legendary origins and its vicissitudes under the Oenotrians and the Ausonians, R. was certainly a Chalcidian colony from the middle of the 8th century B.C. and developed to the point of being one of the most important republics of Magna Graecia. After the Second Punic War, it passed under the dominion of the Romans, who settled 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 its Greek ones. At the fall of the Empire it passed to the Goths and shortly afterward to the Byzantines, who held it through varying fortunes until 1060, amid frequent raids by the Saracens, who in the 9th and 10th centuries repeatedly sacked and destroyed it. The first Normans established at S. Marco and Mileto the seats of their counties, and the Swabians did not appreciate its strategic position, so that R. declined until the 16th century, when its rebirth began.
Regional and local historians attribute its first evangelization to St. Paul, who nevertheless remained there one day, according to Acts 28:13. The acts of the martyrs, St. Stephen of Nicaea first bishop of R., who is said to have suffered martyrdom together with Suera, presumed bishop of Locri, and the holy virgins Perpetua, Felicity and Agnes, are not earlier than the 10th century. Nevertheless R. did not delay in welcoming the faith of Christ, so much so that it is also mentioned by St. Jerome.
No authentic name of bishops is known before the 6th century. The Marcus "episcopus Calabriae," who took part in the Council of Nicaea of 325, was not bishop of R., because Calabria was then the Salentine peninsula; and that Hilary is anachronistic, who in 430 held a synod against the bishop of Umbriatico. Lanzoni also rejects the existence of that Sisinnius, remembered for 532 in the life of St. Placidus by Leo of Ostia, late and fabulous. In the Register of St. Gregory the Great, we finally have a Lucius, earlier than 590, a Boniface, who had much to say with his clergy, from 502 to 602, and finally a Paulinus, bishop of Taurianum, who had its administration temporarily. Some successors of the 7th-8th centuries appear in the ecumenical councils of those times, and the bishop John was legate of Pope Agatho at the Council of Constantinople of 680. At the Second Council of Nicaea of 787 there is still the bishop Constantine, who signs in Greek as a simple bishop. At that time the iconoclast emperors had already withdrawn from Rome all the bishoprics of Calabria in order to subject them to the patriarchate of Constantinople. Through their action the Calabrian ecclesiastical province was created, with R. as metropolis of all the other sees of the region.
In fact in the first Notitiae graecae episcopatuum, from the time of Leo the Armenian (813-20), the metropolis of R., called the Eparchy of Calabria, comprises all the Calabrian dioceses, that is, Bivona, Taurianum, 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 metropolis of S. Severina was created, with five tiny suffragan sees. Another variation occurred under the Normans: Mileto took the place of Taurianum and Vibona and became immediately subject; Amantea was incorporated into Tropea; Nicotera was inserted into the territory of Mileto to be rebuilt only in 1392; Rossano acquired autonomy, and Cosenza, suffragan of R. in the Greek documents, of Salerno in the Latin ones, ended up becoming a metropolis with Martirano, of recent foundation, as its suffragan. R., on the other hand, had aggregated to it 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 subject to R. The metropolitan rights over all these dioceses were confirmed by Alexander III with a bull of 1165 (Ughelli, IX, p. 235; PL 200, 400). In 1818, Nicotera was united in perpetuum to Tropea, Bisignano to S. Marco and declared immediately subject to the Holy See; finally Catanzaro was declared an archdiocese in 1927.
In the territory of R. many Greek monasteries flourished, famous among all those of S. Nicola Calimizzi, of S. Maria Trapezomata, of S. Aniceto, of S. Salvatore di Castaneto, of S. Antonio de Archi, of S. Maria de Terreti, etc., which prolonged their existence until the 16th century. Calabrian-Greek monasticism had worthy representatives in Sts. Cyprian, Cosmas, Vitalis and Arsenius of R., St. Thomas of Terreti and above all St. Elias of R., called the Speleota, whose fame reached even the East.
R. was one of the first dioceses of Calabria to be Latinized by the Normans; but in the city and in the territory Greek elements survived for a long time and in large numbers even in the 16th and 17th centuries, as appears from the pastoral visits of the time, especially from those of Annibale d'Afflitto around 1600. The Franciscans set foot there as early as 1221; they were followed by the Dominicans, who in the 16th century opened a studium there, the Carmelites, the Augustinians, the Minims and the Jesuits, who had a most flourishing college there. The Capuchin movement was begun in Calabria, at the same time as Matteo da Bascia, by the two Observant friars of Reggio, Fathers Ludovico Cumi and Bernardino Molizzi, called il Giorgio. Ecclesiastics of great fame were: Matteo Saraceni, Franciscan and archbishop of Rossano in the 15th century, inquisitor of the Kingdom of Naples; Giuseppe Morisani, most learned historian and archaeologist; Father Cesare De Cara (v.), Jesuit; Antonio De Lorenzo, ecclesiastical and civil historian.
Ancient monuments of R. have been destroyed by earthquakes: the Castle and the sanctuary of the Consolazione have been partly saved. Modern instead are: the very beautiful Cathedral with an original pulpit and statues by Francesco Ierace da Polistena; the church of the Vittoria, in neoclassical style, by Piacentini, to whom the Palazzo del Museo nazionale della Magna Grecia is also owed; finally the grandiose regional Seminary, which receives almost all the clerics of Calabria, after the fire of that of Catanzaro.
R. has a long and glorious series of holy, zealous and learned prelates. To be remembered are St. Cyril, Basilian, whose fame for holiness attracted from Ravenna St. Leo, who was afterward made bishop of Catania. In the 11th century in a Greek document the archbishop Nicholas of R. is called "metropolitan of Calabria and Sicily," perhaps because in the neighboring island the ecclesiastical hierarchy had been almost annihilated by the Saracens, and he must have received from Constantinople the task of watching over the Churches beyond the strait. In the 16th century Gaspare Ricciulli del Fosso di Rogliano, of the Minims, was archbishop of R.; he was at the Council of Trent and died in the reputation of holiness. His successor too, Annibale d'Afflitto da Palermo, had a reputation for holiness and reformed the clergy and the people. The Benedictine Rangerio was the first cardinal placed over the archdiocese from 1091 to 1121; Lando or Landone, counselor of Frederick II, used by the popes in delicate missions; the Franciscan Fra Gentile; Tommaso Ruffo, son of Peter, count of Catanzaro, most dear to Innocent IV; Pietro Filomarini, Neapolitan; Pietro Isvales, Spaniard, cardinal of S. Ciriaco; Ag. Trivulzio, also a cardinal; Gir. Centeglie; Giov. Andrea Morreale and Gennaro Portanova, the last prelate of Reggio honored with the purple (d. in 1908); Antonio Lanza (v.). - See plate 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