bishops of Sicily and Lower Italy.[1] His famous letter to John of Syracuse,[2] in which he defends the Roman Church from the accusation of having imitated Constantinople, begins by saying that he has heard of these accusations from Sicilians, "either Greeks or Latins"[3] (so both were in Sicily then). In the course of it he asks: "Have your Churches received a tradition from the Greeks? Why then do the subdeacons to this day wear linen tunics, except that they have received this custom from their mother the Roman Church?"[4]
Then, after the second hellenization of Sicily and Calabria in the seventh century (when Constans II came to Syracuse in 662, p. 58), we find evidence of a considerable Greek element in Sicily. St Maximos the Confessor (ὁ ὁμολογητής, † 662)[5] preached in Greek "in Africa and the islands near"[6] (clearly including Sicily), and all the people and bishops came to hear him. While he was on the island he wrote a letter, in Greek, to the "holy fathers, hegumenoi, monks, and orthodox people of Sicily."[7] Gregory, the Hymnograph in the seventh century, who wrote a Greek Kontakion in honour of St Marcian,[8] was certainly a Sicilian, probably Bishop of Syracuse.[9] St Gregory of Akragas (Girgenti, in Sicily), author of a Commentary on Ecclesiastes,[10] was a bishop of the Byzantine rite.[11] His date is difficult to determine exactly; he was probably of the seventh century.[12] Our St Theodore of Canterbury (668-690),
- ↑ See L. di Brolo, "Storia d. Chiesa in Sicilia," i, cap. xx (pp. 382-400).
- ↑ Greg. I, Ep. ix, 12 (P.L., lxxvii, 955-958).
- ↑ Ibid., 955.
- ↑ Ibid., 956.
- ↑ The famous monk of Constantinople and opponent of the Monotheletes.
- ↑ "Vita S. Maximi Conf.," § 14 (P.G., xc, 84).
- ↑ P.G., xci, 112-132. That he wrote the letter in Sicily is shown by his reference to "this Christ-loving island of the Sicilians" (ibid., 112).
- ↑ Published by Card. Pitra, "Analecta Sacra" (Paris, 1876), i, p. 273.
- ↑ He refers to "this our island of the Sicilians" (ibid.). See L. di Brolo, "Storia d. Chiesa in Sicilia," ii, 17-21.
- ↑ P.G., xcviii, 741-1181.
- ↑ He writes in Greek, quotes only Greek fathers and the LXX, quotes the Eucharistic words of Institution according to the Byzantine form (e.g., ii, 12; P.G., xcviii, 837).
- ↑ Gregory's Life, by Leontios, monk of St Sabas at Rome (P.G., xcviii, 549-716), does not give the name of a single Pope or Patriarch as clue. We only discover that he came once to Rome (col. 653). Stephen Morcellus conjectures his date as 548-c. 630 (ibid., 543-544). Baronius thinks he is the Gregorius Agrigentinus of the Letters of St Gregory I (590-604; e.g., Ep. i, 72; P.L., lxxvii, 526). Lancia
