- 5. Italo-Greek Canon Law and Rites.
Since the Italo-Greeks are the nearest Uniates to Rome, it is natural that the Holy See should have given to them, if not most, at any rate the first attention. So it happens that many rules, made in the first case for them, have since been applied, sometimes with modifications, to the other Uniates. It follows that much of the Italo-Greek Canon Law has become general Canon Law for all Uniate churches. In other ways they stand apart from all the others. For instance, they are considerably the most influenced by Latin principles. During the centuries in which they have lived in Italy, surrounded by Latins, they have adopted many Roman customs; in some cases the Popes imposed such customs on them, no doubt thinking these to be essentially Catholic. Later bodies of Uniates have escaped this influence. On joining the Church they brought with them their independent customs. Since they joined at a later period, when the study of rites and canons was more advanced, it was then recognized that these customs and ritual observances were in themselves perfectly legitimate. Here I note one or two of the main features of Italo-Greek law
Although we put the Italo-Greeks first among the Uniate Churches, although in the past they have played so important a part in Church history, it is a curious point to note that they are not really a Church at all. For to be a Church — that is, a local Church in the one great Catholic Church, people must at least have bishops with ordinary jurisdiction. Lower than one diocese the concept of a Church cannot go. But the Italo-Greeks have no Ordinaries. We have seen that the last lines of Byzantine bishops in Italy died out — that is, became Roman — before the Albanians arrived (p. 102). The Albanians, scattered about Calabria and Sicily, have never had dioceses of their own. They have been counted, quite correctly, simply as so many Catholics more in each Latin diocese already existing. Indeed, unless they had been all herded together in one district, and all the Latins turned out of it, it would have been impossible to make them into a diocese on the normal lines. It is true that in later times cross-jurisdiction over the same territory has become common; so that now, in the Levant, there are many cases of bishops ruling their subjects, not by geographical area, but according to the rite these subjects use, wherever (within limits) they may dwell. But in the fifteenth century, when the Albanians arrived in Italy, there was thought to be a great principle against this.
