OUR ITALIAN GREEK CATHOLICS n? 



where the Greeks maintain a beautiful church, with a priest 

 from Athens. 



The Greek Catholics of Italy and Sicily differ from the 

 Greek Catholics and Greek Orthodox of the rest of the world 

 in one particular: they observe the Gregorian calendar and 

 not the Julian calendar/ so that their immovable and Easter 

 festivals, which coincide with the Latin ones, fall upon the 

 same days as the ones in the Roman calendar, instead of being 

 thirteen days, or sometimes more, behind, as in Austria, Rus- 

 sia, Greece and Turkey. Of course, the purely Greek feasts 

 and fasts fall as provided in the Greek calendar, but as ad- 

 justed to the Gregorian or New Style. 



The Greek Catholics of Italy in some respects are more 

 tenacious of purely Greek rites than those of Austria. They 

 say that it is their national rite from the very beginning, and 

 that the rite must be altogether Greek or altogether Latin, and 

 that there should be no mixing of the two rites. Of course, 

 this cannot always be avoided. Yet Cardinal Vannutelli relates 

 that when he was at Cargese, Corsica, a celebrated mission 

 preacher came to hold a mission there, which lasted a week at 

 the Greek church and a week at the Roman church. All the 

 inhabitants who could come attended both churches. In the 

 Greek church all the hymns were sung in Italian, because the 

 Roman Catholics knew no Greek, and the next week the com- 

 pliment was returned in the Latin church, because the Greeks 

 could not sing Latin hymns, and so they were again all sung 

 in Italian. 



One thing the Greeks of Southern Italy have retained from 

 the ancient Church, which has changed everywhere else, and 

 that is the form of chief vestment of the Mass. The Greek 

 vestments used in Italy and Sicily correspond to those used in 

 the Greek Orthodox Church, and consist of the stichario or 

 alb ; the epitrachilio or stole, which joins in one piece ; the zona 

 or girdle ; the epimanica or cuffs, corresponding to the maniple 

 of the Roman rite; the felonio or chasuble. Originally the 

 vestments of the Church, both Roman and Greek, particularly 

 the chasuble, were the same. It consisted originally of the 

 magnificent senatorial mantle or planeta, the finest official dress 

 of the Romans. Since the time of the schism of the East and 

 the West, both the Greek and Roman churches have been al- 



1 Constitutio Benedict! XI\^ "Etsi pastoralis," June i, 1742, IX, 2-6. 



