Albanians, as far as they represent Italo-Greek rites, have greatly diminished in numbers. Many of their descendants have become Italians of the Roman rite; others have adopted the Roman rite, though they still keep their own language. Lastly, in late years, driven by the economic difficulties of Southern Italy, large numbers of them have emigrated to America. There now remain twenty places in Calabria and five in Sicily where the Byzantine rite survives. In Calabria all are included in the four dioceses Anglona and Tursi (united), Cassano al Ionio, San Marco and Bisignano (united), Rossano, in the provinces of Basilicata and Calabria Citeriore. They fall into three groups. In the diocese of Anglona and Tursi are five villages. Castoreggio[1] has nearly 2,000 Albanians with a church, S Maria ad Nives, and a priest of the Byzantine rite. Farneta[2] has about 800, San Paolo[3] 1,800, San Costantino[4] about the same number. South of these we come to the two more important groups on either side of the valley of the Crati. The Crati[5] is a river which flows into the Gulf of Taranto just south of the old Greek city Sybaris. The railway follows its course from Bisignano to Sibari. The river forms a fertile and most beautiful valley. North and south of this are lines of hills. To the north is Monte Pollino, to the south Monte Sila. It is on the slopes of these mountains that the Albanian villages are found.
There is first the line along the northern slopes. Lungro is the chief of these. The Albanians settled here in 1500. In 1576 they had twelve priests and six deacons. For their principal church they took an old Basilian monastery church; this is S Nicholas, still the parish church and "matrice" of the place. There are, I think, two others, all Byzantine in rite. The Roman priest who wishes to celebrate at Lungro may do so; but he must use Byzantine vestments, because they have no others. The parish priest, who is a Protopapa,[6] is fond of telling visitors that, when he was a boy, there were ten
- ↑ Rodotà, "del Rito greco," iii, 62; Charon, "Le quinzième Centenaire de S Jean Chrysostome " (Rome, 1909), p. 262, n. 2.
- ↑ Rodotà, op. cit., ibid.; Charon, op. cit. ibid.
- ↑ Charon, ibid.
- ↑ Rodotà, iii, 61; Charon, ibid.
- ↑ The Greek Κρᾶθις.
- ↑ Incidentally I may mention at once that nearly all the Albanian parish priests in Italy are Protopapi, wear rings, and have various privileges of which each is very proud, which seem to mark each as a distinguished prelate, till one finds that all the others have the same. Throughout Italy the multiplication of ecclesiastical titles has destroyed any meaning they once had, nowhere more than among the Albanians.
