The Eastern Orthodox often claim that Southern Italy was Eastern Orthodox for 1,000 years and that the Italians were never Latin or Roman Catholic prior to the Norman conquest. After the Norman conquest, they argue, there was a “latinization” which tore the southern Italians away from Greek Orthodoxy.
Now, as already stated, the Eastern Orthodox revisionists believe that all of Western Europe was Orthodox prior to 1054 AD, however they have a particular fixation on southern Italy. The claim is also closely interconnected with the claim that “southern Italians are Greek”, which is a related but still distinct claim which will be addressed later. And since southern Italians are Greeks — according to them — they must have been Eastern Orthodox too.
In reality Southern Italy was never “Orthodox”. I will briefly explain here what actually occurred.
It began in the 8th century during a dispute known as the Iconoclast Controversy.
Iconoclasm is the doctrine according to which the use of religious images or icons is wrong and therefore icons must be prohibited and destroyed. This ideology originated in the Jewish world, which transmitted it to the Arab Muslim world, and from there gained traction in the Byzantine Empire. It found supporters among both the Byzantine emperor and the bishop of Constantinople, whereas it was strongly opposed by the Latin West and by some monks in the Byzantine Empire and Near East.
At this time, parts of southern Italy (Sicily, Calabria, Salento in Puglia) were ruled by the Byzantine Empire, while the rest of southern Italy — most of southern Italy, in fact — was under the authority of Longobard dukes.
It must be remembered also that at this time the bishops of Rome and Constantinople were in union: the Latin and Greek churches had not yet split from each other, and Eastern Orthodoxy did not yet exist.
The dispute over Iconoclasm, however, led to a temporary schism between Rome and Constantinople. The reigning Byzantine emperor Leo III the Isaurian was an Iconoclast, and so too was Anastasius the bishop of Constantinople. After being condemned by Pope Gregory III, the emperor retaliated by confiscating the pope’s estates in Calabria and Sicily and by detaching southern Italy, Sicily and Illyricum from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Rome and instead placing them under the jurisdiction of Constantinople.
The emperor did not have any right to do this, especially given the fact that both he and the bishop of Constantinople were promoting the heresy of Iconoclasm and had been excommunicated. However, because the Byzantine emperor ruled those territories, he could also exert power and influence over the churches, whether the pope liked it or not. And thus Constantinople came into ecclesiastical possession of the churches in southern Italy (more specifically, the churches in those territories which were under Byzantine imperial rule).
Up until that time, all of southern Italy was part of the Latin Church under the direct jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome. We know from the reforms and interventions of Pope Gregory I (and even earlier than this) that all of Italy was subject to the Latin Church since the earliest centuries of Christianity:
“At the time of St. Gregory the Great Church of Brutium was made up of 14 dioceses: Reggio, Locri, Squillace, Tauriano, Tempsa, Vibona, Miria, Torri or Thurii, Crotone, Cosenza, Tropea, Blanda, Nicotera and perhaps also Cirella. ... All the dioceses of Bruttium (Calabria) were of Latin language and Roman rite, and all depended directly on the Bishop of Rome: Gregory often intervened in the affairs of the local churches of Bruttium either directly or through his representative: the regional deacon Savinus or Sabinus, Rector of the Patrimony of the Roman Church.” (Source: Francesco Russo, Storia della Chiesa in Calabria. Dalle origini al Concilio di Trento, 1982, p. 128)
This is further proven by the decree of Pope Gelasius addressed to “all the bishops in Lucania, Bruttium and Sicily” (494 AD). It was the Iconoclast Emperor Leo III who in 732-733 AD illegally seized these territories from the bishop of Rome and delivered them to the bishop of Constantinople.
In the next decades the Iconoclast Controversy was eventually resolved; Rome and Constantinople were later reconciled under a different emperor and a different bishop of Constantinople — ones who opposed the Iconoclasm of their predecessors. However, even after Constantinople abandoned Iconoclasm, the territories which had been taken from Rome were never returned by the bishop of Constantinople. The bishop of Rome protested against this, arguing that the emperor did not have any right to transfer ecclesiastical jurisdiction from one see to another and that, therefore, the previous Iconoclast bishop of Constantinople had illegally usurped jurisdiction over churches rightfully belonging to Rome.
Despite this protest and despite the official reconciliation between the Latin and Greek churches, the bishops of Constantinople never relinquished the territories which they had illicitly obtained from the Iconoclast emperor Leo III, and this fact became a point of contention between Rome and Constantinople. And so, in this way, some regions in southern Italy illegally fell under the jurisdiction of Constantinople.
The entire situation was, once again, a result of the Byzantines conflating the temporal and religious spheres; of the Emperor and his loyal patriarch trying to control and intertwine both secular politics and ecclesiastical policy; of using the church of Constantinople and interfering in ecclesiastical matters in order to advance the imperial power of the Byzantine emperor; of bending the church’s doctrine and policy to the imperial will. This was the maximum demonstration of Caesaropapism in action.
Initially the “transfer of jurisdiction” to Constantinople did not have any practical effect, as the Italian population continued to use the Latin rite in their churches. In the subsequent centuries, however, the Byzantines conducted a policy of forced Greekification and de-Latinization in southern Italy; Greek rites were forcibly imposed upon the Latin population; Greek bishops were installed in Latin dioceses. Aside from the aforementioned Leo III the Isaurian, the main protagonist of the Byzantinization of southern Italy was Emperor Nicephorus II (the same emperor whose ambassadors had described the people of Rome as “nothing but vile minions...bastards, plebeians, slaves”). In the year 968 AD he ordered the suppression of Latin churches and demanded that all the dioceses in Calabria and Puglia adopt the Greek rite; the Latin rite was officially prohibited.
This took place in the context of a dispute between the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, which led to the Byzantines being nearly completely driven out of Italy. In response, wishing to consolidate Byzantine hegemony and fearing the influence of the Latin West over the southern Italian population, Emperor Nicephorus II ordered the forced de-latinization of the Italian churches in Byzantine territory. Some cities in southern Italy, such as Taranto, continued to resist these orders until the arrival of the Normans. Taranto was a major city which never celebrated the Greek rite and proudly continued to defiantly celebrate Latin rites. Bari was another major city which opposed the imposition of the Greek rite. The city of Trani only managed to retain its Latin rite thanks to the local bishop Rodostamo (also called Rodostamus), who betrayed the Holy Roman Emperor and surrendered the city to the Byzantines in 983 AD; in exchange Trani was permitted to preserve the Latin rite:
“Emperor Nicephorus Phocas and the Patriarch Polyeuctos made it obligatory on the bishops, in 968, to adopt the Greek Rite. This order aroused lively opposition in some quarters, as at Bari, under Bishop Giovanni. Nor was it executed in other places immediately and universally. Cassano and Taranto, for instance, are said to have always maintained the Latin Rite. At Trani, in 983, Bishop Rodostamo was allowed to retain the Latin Rite, as a reward...” (Source: Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. VIII, 'Italo-Greeks', 1913, p. 207)
These events in southern Italy are very little-discussed, very little-known and very rarely mentioned even by historians, except by those historians who specialize in the subject of liturgical history in Italy. Instead, we are often treated to a Protestant and pro-Byzantine narrative according to which “Latin crusaders invaded Byzantine territory, persecuted the Greek Orthodox Church and imposed foreign Latin rites”, when that is not really the whole story. Preceding this, the Latin Church had been persecuted by the Byzantine emperors and the Greek rite was in fact imposed upon Italians by the Byzantines in the centuries before the arrival of the Normans.
Here is the major point though: just because the Greek rite was imposed in southern Italy does not mean that the population was “Greek Orthodox”. In the first place, the Catholic Church had always been sub-divided into various different liturgical rites: Roman Rite, Byzantine Rite, Ambrosian Rite, Aquileian Rite, Gallican Rite, Mozarabic Rite, Alexandrian Rite, etc. In the second place, the Eastern Orthodox religion — though it traces its theological origins to the 9th century bishop Photius — did not reach its full doctrinal development until the period following the Great Schism of 1054. Prior to that schism, the Latin Church and Greek Church were still in union with each other, together constituting one Church and one faith under the bishop of Rome. The emperors’ imposition of the Greek rite, therefore, meant the imposition a different liturgical rite, not the imposition of a different religion. Once more, at that time the emperors and bishops of Constantinople still belonged to the same Church in union with the pope.
One can mark the Great Schism as the more or less ‘official’ beginning of Eastern Orthodox Church, even if it took several years to fully establish and assert itself.
The Great Schism between Rome and Constantinople took place in 1054.
The Norman conquest of Byzantine-controlled Calabria took place between 1050 and 1061.
The Norman conquest of Byzantine-controlled Puglia took place between 1053 and 1071.
Just by consulting the dates, it is clear that “Eastern Orthodoxy” never even had a chance to take root in southern Italy. It was only a handful of Byzantine-appointed bishops and monks living in southern Italy who enthusiastically supported Constantinople after the 1054 schism; the general population had little to do with this. What did take root, instead, was the Greek rite, which had been forcibly imposed on the population in Calabria and Puglia from 968 AD onwards by the Byzantine emperors. The different rite, however, was a rite which was recognized by — and was in communion with — the Catholic Church. And it was this same rite which was gradually substituted by the Latin rite following the Norman conquest (1050-1071 on the mainland; 1061-1091 in Sicily), after which these lands were returned to the direct jurisdiction of Rome.
In summary:
Eastern Orthodox revisionists speak of a “Latinization” of southern Italy and “persecution of the Greek Church” by the Normans. But the actions of the Normans in Italy was in fact a “re-Latinization”.
Up until the 8th century the whole of southern Italy belonged to the Latin Church under the jurisdiction of Rome; in 732-733 AD the Iconoclast Emperor usurped parts of southern Italy and illegally placed them under the jurisdiction of Constantinople; despite this, up until the 10th century the Italian population still adhered to the Latin rite; beginning in 968 AD the Byzantine Emperor began to close Latin churches and forcibly impose the Greek rite; in the 11th century some cities in southern Italy were still resisting the Byzantine attempt to supplant the Latin rite with the Greek rite; between 1050-1091 the Normans conquered southern Italy and began to reintroduce the Latin rite which had been previously prohibited and suppressed by the Byzantines; Rome and Constantinople were still in union prior to the Great Schism of 1054; southern Italy therefore was never “Eastern Orthodox”.
Greek Orthodox revisionists, however, continue to maintain that southern Italy was Eastern Orthodox since the first century AD and did not become Roman Catholic until after the Norman conquest.
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