OUR ITALIAN GREEK CATHOLICS 113 



healthy boy to school and college, whence he might or might 

 not emerge a suitable candidate for the seminary, was put 

 aside in favor of the active duties of peasant life. It was the 

 struggling priest, and often the priest's own family, which re- 

 tained the Greek rite and furnished its candidates for the 

 priesthood amid such poverty. Thus it became easier and 

 more direct for the Greek peasant to turn to the Latin churches 

 around him for the Sacraments and worship, because of the 

 lack of his own. 



The Italian Greek Catholics of to-day are therefore com- 

 posed of the descendants of the Greek inhabitants of Southern 

 Italy and the descendants of the Albanians who came to Italy 

 in 1443-1490. Many of their villages have changed to the 

 Roman rite, partly because of the influence of their Latin 

 neighbors around them, and, within the past thirty years, be- 

 cause of the abolition of the monasteries by the Italian govern- 

 ment since 1870. Of the eight Greek Catholic monasteries, 

 which were in Sicily and Southern Italy prior to 1870, not two 

 remain. They were the central points for keeping alive the 

 Greek rite, a task which the parish priest with the multitude 

 of his labors cannot so well do. The only Greek monastery 

 now left is that of Grotta Ferrata of the monks of Saint Basil 

 founded in 1002 by Saint Nilus. It has been declared a "Na- 

 tional Monument" by the Italian Government, and hence re- 

 mains undisturbed. There is an Oratorian monastery at Plana 

 dei Greci, in Sicily, which is a curious example of a Latin 

 order taken up by Greek priests in 1730, but only two priests 

 of the order are left. There are also the Greek College at 

 Rome, the College of San Adriano in Calabria and the Semi- 

 nario Greco of Palermo, for the education chiefly of candidates 

 for the priesthood according to the Greek rite. There is a 

 Greek convent for women, Santa Macrina, at Plana dei Greci. 



The number of Greek Catholics in Italy is hard to ascertain 

 exactly. I have inquired of the Italian governmental authori- 

 ties in vain; and I cannot say that the church authorities of 

 either the Roman or the Greek Rite have returned much more 

 satisfactory answers to the questions addressed to them. But 

 from all my inquiries and a study of the latest Italian census 

 tables (the census of 1901) it seems that the Greek Catholics 

 in Italy (according to origin or descent) are about as follows : 

 Albanesi, 93,000; Greek descent, 31,200; Slavic descent, 30,- 



