SANTA SEVERINA, ARCHDIOCESE OF
City and archdiocese in the province of Catanzaro (Calabria). It has an area of 800 km² with a population of 60,000, all Catholic, distributed across 24 parishes served by 34 diocesan priests and 8 religious; it has a seminary, 4 male and 6 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 364).
It is the ancient Seberene, Latinized as Severiana and finally Byzantinized as S. S. Following Nicephorus Phocas’ victory over the Saracens (886), it briefly bore the name of Nicopolis. However, it is erroneous to assign to it the bishop ANDREAS NICOPOLITANUS mentioned by St Gregory the Great, who refers to Nicopolis in Greece. The city of S. S. stands on the eastern slopes of the Sila in the Neto valley, a short distance from Crotone. Due to its strategic position, it was fortified and enhanced by the Byzantines, who left many traces of their civilization in the church of Pozzolio and in the Baptistery. As a diocese, it owes its existence to the Byzantines, who established it from scratch, elevating it at the same time to the rank of metropolitan see of five tiny suffragan dioceses, all carved out of the ancient see of Crotone, which was reduced to the city itself. Its existence prior to the 9th century cannot be admitted, since it does not appear—whether as a metropolitan see or as a suffragan of Reggio—in the oldest Greek catalogues. The first mention occurs in Notitia III of the Diatiposis, dating from the time of Leo VI the Philosopher (886–911), where it appears as a metropolitan see. Cut off from the great lines of communication, it lost its former importance. Thus the Holy See ultimately left it in 1818 as the sole suffragan of Catanzaro and finally suppressed it in 1952, though preserving its archiepiscopal dignity: Catanzaro was aggregated to the metropolitan see of Reggio Calabria.
Within the archdiocese of S. S. several Cistercian monasteries flourished, including S. Angelo in Frigillo at Mesuraca and S. Maria delle Terrate at Rocca di Neto. Among the mendicant convents are to be noted the Dominican house at S. S., the Ecce Homo at Mesuraca, and the S. Spina at Petilia; the last two are famous Franciscan shrines.
Among the men who honored this metropolitan see are reckoned: the popes St Anterus, St Zosimus, and St Zachary, whom tradition assigns respectively to Petilia, Mesuraca (Reace), and S. S.; Leonardo Caruso of S. S., friend of St Philip Neri and equerry to Gregory XIII, who founded in Rome the hospice for abandoned boys and the Casa di S. Eufemia for poor spinsters. The first bishop whose name is recorded is Ambrose, mentioned in the Greek inscription on the dedication of the old cathedral, assigned to the 9th century. A Stephen, metropolitan of S. S., appears in the Life of St Nilus before 985; Basil attended the Council of Constantinople in 997; Giulio Antonio Santoro of Caserta (1566–82), known as the cardinal of S. S., who founded the seminary and saved Greek monasticism from certain ruin; Fausto Caffarelli, nuncio to Savoy (1624–51). The archdiocese of S. S. is no longer a metropolitan see; its former suffragan, Catanzaro, has been transferred to Reggio (AAS, 44 [1952], pp. 516–18).