province, Nicholas I (858-867), though he calls the Ordinary of Syracuse Archbishop, still insists that the ancient custom be maintained, according to which he must come to Rome to be ordained: "We require that the consecration of the Archbishop of Syracuse be performed by our See; that the tradition founded by the Apostles in no way be abandoned in our time."[1]
So, as far as I know, all authors of repute agree that the ordination of bishops in the Campagna, Bruttii, Apulia, and Sicily were performed by the Roman Pontiffs.[2] Now, for a long time in the West, as still in the East, the right of ordaining bishops was considered a mark of immediate jurisdiction over them. The Popes never attempted to ordain all the bishops of their vast Patriarchate. It is all the more significant that they ordained those of Southern Italy and Sicily.
Another proof that these dioceses were part of the Roman province is that their bishops attended the Roman provincial synods. They were summoned to these and attended them regularly. St Leo I (440-461) insists that the Sicilian bishops must attend the Roman synods every year.[3] As late as 680, when Pope Agatho (678-681) held a provincial synod at Rome to arrange about the Legates he was to send to the sixth general council (Constantinople, III, 680), all the bishops of Calabria and Sicily attend it.[4] Even after the Byzantine usurpation had begun, the more conservative bishops, who would not accept the new state of things, still go to the Roman provincial synods. Thus the Bishops of Tarentum, Cosentiæ, Bisinianum, Luceræ, Beneventum, and Capua are present at the Roman Synod of 743.[5]
Moreover, in all this earlier period we find the Popes legislating for details of Church government in the South in a way that argues not only supreme Papal or Patriarchal authority, but the more intimate supervision of a Metropolitan. Gregory I's letters contain many examples of this. He
- ↑ Nic. I, Ep. 4, ad Michaelem Imp. (P.L., cxix, 779).
- ↑ For instance, Peter de Marca, Archbp. of Paris, "de Concordia Sacerdotii et Imperii" (Paris, 1641), Lib. i, cap. i, § 4 (pp. 7-8); Lequien, "Oriens Christianus" (Paris, 1740), Tom. i, cap. 14, § 2 (col. 96); Iohannes de Iohanne, "de Divinis Siculorum Officiis" (Palermo, 1736), cap. v (pp. 33-41); Assemani, "Italicæ hist. scriptores" (Rome, 1751-1753), iii, pp. 472-473; Rodotà, "del Rito greco in Italia" (Rome, 1758), i, cap. ii, pp. 49-60. See Rocco Pirri (quoted here, p. 80, n. 1).
- ↑ Ep. 16 (P.L., liv, 702).
- ↑ Their signatures are in Mansi, xi, 299-306.
- ↑ Mansi, xii, 367. Cf. J. Gay, "L'Italie mérid. et L'Emp. byz.," pp. 187, 190.
