OUR ITALIAN GREEK CATHOLICS 



A Sketch of Their Rite in Italian America 



A LARGE portion of Southern Italy was settled by 

 the Greeks long before the Roman republic fell, and 

 by the time the Empire was established under the 

 Caesars, that portion of Italy was known as "Magna Graecia" — 

 greater Greece. At times in its history it rivalled the older 

 lands of Attica and the Peloponnesus. From Naples south- 

 ward the Greek tongue and Greek manners and customs pre- 

 vailed, while in Sicily the country and cities were wholly 

 Greek. It was in Southern Italy that the Romans had their 

 first close contact with Greek learning and civilization. The . 

 provinces of Italy proper, where the Greeks were the chief 

 inhabitants and the Greek language and culture prevailed, 

 were Apulia, Basilicata and Calabria, and the greater por- 

 tion of the present province of Naples. 



The Romans in their conquest of the east and the west 

 loomed great as a world power, but their might and energy 

 had nowhere to be exerted more strongly in the Latinization 

 of neighboring peoples than in the southern confines of Italy 

 itself. The Empire, as vast and as strong as it was, never 

 succeeded fully. The Greek population of Italy lived side 

 by side with their Latin neighbors, yet never became thor- 

 oughly Latin. The Christian church did what the pagan world 

 could not do, and made these people one in religious thought, 

 but even that did not fully extinguish the Greek upon Italian 

 soil. Even to-day in Southern Italy the Greek still lingers 

 as a spoken language in some seaport towns and country 

 places, and the inhabitants have long been bi-lingual, keeping 

 their ancient tongue whilst acquiring a new one. 



The Italian Greeks followed the fortunes of both old and 

 new Rome. When Christianity came on the scene of the 

 world's history, the Greek portion of Italy and Sicily re- 



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