customs. Clement VII (1523-1534) gave them the Church of St Anne in 1524; and in order to prevent quarrels between them and the Ordinary, he exempted them from local jurisdiction, reserving to himself all authority over their church, their clergy, and a confraternity they formed. In return they were to make an offering of candles to the Pope every year at Candlemas. All went well for about two centuries. The Greeks at Ancona had their chaplain, who was proud of his immediate dependence on the Holy See. But in the time of Benedict XIV (1740-1758) there were disputes between them and the Bishop of Ancona. No diocesan bishop much likes exempt communities in his diocese; in this case (as usually happens) he complained that the Greeks were exceeding the limit of their just exemption and were defying his authority, making it contemptible throughout the diocese. So Benedict XIV in 1750 abolished the exemption. At Ancona, too, the Greeks seem to have borne union unwillingly, at least in the later period. They, too, turned longing eyes to Constantinople, where reigned the great head of their nation.
But, as long as they were in the Papal states, it was vain to hope to be allowed to go into schism. They showed their minds when the French proclaimed the Cisalpine Republic in 1797. At once they broke their communion with Rome and turned Orthodox. The result of this was that in 1822, after a long lawsuit, the bishop was able to claim the Church of St Anne and to turn them out of it. Since then the church is restored to the Latin rite. There is still a small Orthodox community at Ancona, consisting of Greek merchants. They have now built themselves a new church.[1]
In 1671 a number of Greeks from Maina in the Peloponnesus came to Tuscany. They were well received by the Grand Duke (Cosimo III, 1670-1723), and settled about Volterra. They, too, declared that they were Uniates. They were given a church at Bibbona.[2] In 1674 the Bishop of Volterra, profiting by the accidental presence of the Byzantine Uniate Bishop of Samos in Tuscany, sent him to Bibbona as delegate and visitor of the Greek community there. The
- ↑ Rodotà, ii, 228-229; Moroni, "Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica" (Venice), vol. xxxii (1845), p. 150; J. Hergenröther, "Die Rechtsverhältnisse der verschiedenen Riten innerhalb der Kath. Kirche" (in the Archiv für Kath. Kirchenrecht, Mainz, vol. vii, 1862), p. 181. The only connection between St Anne's Church and the Greeks now remaining is that its parish priest is bound, at least once a week, to preach against the Eastern schism.
- ↑ Bibbona is a small place in the Maremma toscana, South of Pisa.
