picture many others received the same name, and it became a favourite title of our Lady.[1] There are several Hodegetria pictures and churches with this dedication among the Italo-Greeks. Perhaps, as wandering foreigners in a strange land, they saw how appropriate is the title "Guide of the Way." The monks at Rossano, fleeing from the Saracens in Sicily, set up a shrine of our Lady Hodegetria. The Albanians from Korone, arriving at Messina in 1533, brought with them a picture of the B.V.M. Hodegetria and set it up in the church of St Nicholas.[2] There was another Hodegetria picture at Messina in the church of St Marina; this was brought from Rhodes in 1512.[3] The Sicilians have a national church (of the Roman rite) at Rome, "S Maria Odigetria."[4]
The other name of the monastery at Rossano is del Patire. This occurs first in the form "de Patirio" in the Bull of Innocent III (1198).[5] The meaning of the word has been much discussed. The most probable opinion seems to be that of Montfaucon, that this, too, is Greek: "τοῦ πατρός," that the "Father" is the founder, St Neilos, that originally it was merely an addition to "Hodegetria." Our Lady was "Guide of the Way of the Father (Neilos)." Then "de Patirio," "del Patire" became the only name.[6]
Since the eleventh century Grottaferrata has always been one of the most important centres of Byzantine monasticism in Italy; and now it is the only survivor of so many once famous houses.[7]
The Byzantine monks naturally followed the rule of St Basil. In Italy, especially, they are always called Basilians. The first official use of the expression "Ordo S Basilii" occurs in 1382.[8] It is not really a correct form. In the
- ↑ The Byzantine rite keeps the feast, ἡ παναγία Μαρία τῆς ὁδηγητρίας. The Italo-Greeks on the third day after Pentecost (Nilles, ii, 548); the Orthodox in Russia on July 28 (cf. A. v. Maltzew, Menologion, Berlin, 1901, ii, 621-633).
- ↑ Rodotà, "del Rito greco," iii, 116.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ S Maria d'Itria, in the Via del Tritone. Agnoletti, "Compendio storico della chiesa e dell' ospedale di S Maria d'Itria di Constantinopoli della nazione siciliana in Roma" (Rome, 1889).
- ↑ Ughelli, ix, 295.
- ↑ B. de Montfaucon, "Palæographia græca" (Paris, 1708), lib. vii, pp. 382-384, quoting the diploma of Roger II (1130), νέας ὁδηγητρίας τοῦ πατρός. Cf. p. 398.
- ↑ See pp. 146-151.
- ↑ This is, at any rate, the first case Rodotà knows. In 1382 Cyprian, Archimandrite of the monastery of St John Theristes in the diocese of Squillace, appoints a procurator at Rome. He signs the
