Sicily, we conclude again that this was part of his own province. So Rodotà: "The Pope, therefore, not only as Head of the Church and Patriarch, but also as Metropolitan, used his authority over the lands contained in that district which is now known as the kingdom of Naples and Sicily; it knew no other Metropolitan during the first seven centuries of the Church than the Bishop of Rome."[1] Perhaps the simplest proof of this is the fact that, when Constantinople in the eighth century first began to tear these dioceses away from Rome, to set up local Metropolitans in these parts, it was admitted by the Greeks themselves, it is indeed manifest from the whole proceeding that this was then an innovation (see p. 90).
- 3. Byzantine Usurpation (Eighth to Eleventh Century).
In the eighth century the use of the Byzantine rite began to spread throughout Lower Italy at the cost of the Roman rite, and for the first time the Christians of these parts were brought into subjection to the Patriarch of Constantinople. We have seen the second hellenization of the old Greater Greece from the seventh century.[2] The eighth set a seal on this movement by hellenizing ecclesiastical affairs as well. So we come to the last great wave of Greek influence here. It lasted till the Norman conquest of the eleventh century finally turned the tide towards Rome.
The aggression of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in what had been the Roman ecclesiastical province began at the time of the Iconoclast troubles. When the Emperor Leo III, the Isaurian (717-741), began his campaign against the holy images, he came into conflict with the Pope (Gregory II, 715-731). Unless the Pope obeyed his Iconoclast law, he threatened to send an army to Rome, break up the statue of St Peter there and take the Pope prisoner.[3] He could
- ↑ Rodotà, op. cit., i, 53. See all his chap ii. (pp. 49-60) for further evidences and authorities. Harnack holds this as "probable," and says, "I cannot prove it here" ("Mission u. Ausbreitung des Christentums," Leipzig, 1902, p. 500). Morisani brings evidences to prove it ("de Protopapis," 155-157). See also especially the two dissertations of Rocco Pirri (Abbot of Noto in Southern Sicily), "Disquisitiones de Patriarcha Siciliæ," and "de Metropolita Siciliæ" in I. G. Grævius, "Thesaurus Antiq. et Histor. Siciliæ," tom. ii (Leiden, 1723), where there is abundance of evidence.
- ↑ Above, p. 56. L. di Brolo dates the second hellenization of these Churches from the coming of Constans II to Syracuse in 668 ("Storia d. Chiesa in Sicilia," ii, 16-23).
- ↑ Greg. II, Ep. 12, ad Leonem Imp. (P.L., lxxxix, col. 519, B).
