Latin Archbishopric of Corinth explained

The Latin Archbishopric of Corinth is a titular see of the Latin Church. It dates to 1210, when a Catholic archbishop was installed on the Orthodox Metropolis of Corinth, in Southern Greece, in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade. Since the Byzantine reconquest in the early 15th century, and except for a brief period of Venetian rule in 1688–1715, it has been awarded as a titular see. It has been vacant since 2005.

History

The See of Corinth has a long history, and is held to have been founded by the Apostle Paul.[1] In the Roman and early Byzantine periods, Corinth was the capital and metropolitan see of the province of Achaea (southern Greece).[2] From the early 9th century, however, the primacy of Corinth over the Peloponnese was challenged by the See of Patras, and from the 10th century on the jurisdiction of the See of Corinth was restricted to the eastern Peloponnese and certain of the Ionian Islands.

In 1203/4, the city fell to the lord of the Argolid, Leo Sgouros, who used the weakness of the Byzantine government and the turmoil of the Fourth Crusade to carve out for himself a practically independent state in southern and central Greece.[3] Sgouros' ambitions to create a state of his own were checked by the onslaught of the victorious Crusaders, who captured Corinth in 1210 after a long siege.[4] [5]

The Crusaders established a Roman Catholic ("Latin") Archbishopric to replace the Greek Orthodox see, covering the same territory: the seven suffragan sees of Cephalonia, Zakynthos, Damala, Lacedaemon/Monemvasia, Argos, Helos and Zemena.[6] In reality, Monemvasia and Helos were not to come under Latin control until thirty years later, and the Latin clergy had difficulty imposing itself on the rural Greek population and priesthood. As a result, the sees of Damala, Helos and Zemena seem to have never been occupied,[7] and Zemena and one half of Damala came to form part of the diocese of Corinth itself.[8] Along with its rival, the Latin Archbishop of Patras, the Archbishop of Corinth ranked as one of the two senior ecclesiastic barons in the Principality of Achaea, with eight knight's fiefs attached to him (and four each for the suffragan bishops of Argos and Lacedaemon).[9] Nevertheless, despite its ancestry and prestige, Corinth was rapidly eclipsed by Patras during the period of Frankish rule.[10]

Le Quien (III, 883) mentions twenty Latin prelates from 1210 to 1700, but Eubel (I, 218; II, 152) mentions twenty-two archbishops for the period from 1212 to 1476. The city was recovered by the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea in 1395, and, after a short period (1397–1404) of rule by the Knights Hospitaller, returned to Byzantine hands, where it remained until it fell to the Ottoman Empire on 8 August 1458.[2] After this the Catholic see remained as a titular see.

The Archbishopric of Corinth became once more the centre of the Catholic Church in the Peloponnese during the brief period of Venetian rule in 1688–1715, while the Orthodox Metropolis of Patras remained the centre of the local Orthodox Church.[11]

Residential archbishops

NameTenureNotes
Walter1212 – after 1215
Unknown10 June 1224 – ?
Unknown1228
Peter of ConfluenziaFebruary 1268 – 5 April 1278
William of Moerbeke9 April 1278 – ?
Robert22 October 1286 – ?
Matthew of Osenioca. 1294
Louisca. 1300
John of Spoleto18 January 1306 – 5 June 1307Apostolic administrator
James5 June 1307 – ?
Bartholomewca. 1312
Jamesca. 1340 – 7 January 1349
Francis of Massa29 March 1349 – ?
Paul15 March 1363 – ca. 1379
Matthew 19 September 1386 – ?
Stephen8 July 1390 – 15 March 1395
Peter John26 April 1395 - 12 January 1396
Biagio12 January 1396 – ?
John ca. 25 June 1407
Antony?
Peter Rainaldi14 February 1421 – ?

Titular archbishops

NameTenureNotes
31 July 1476 – ?
ca. 1512 – ?
1517 – ?
13 February 1591 – 23 July 1597
1625 – 29. Oktober 1629
5 October 1643 – 21 March 1654
16 October 1656 – 15 April 1665
28 April 1664 – 15 March 1666
29 March 1666 – 18 April 1667
27 February 1668 – 23 March 1676
9 September 1675 – 21 July 1698
Leonardo Balsarini19 December 1698 – 1699
Angelo Maria Carlini11 December 1702 – 1715
Mondilio Orsini (Mundillus Orsini)26 June 1724 – 20 November 1724
Giuseppe Spinelli5 September 1725 – 15 December 1734
14 March 1735 – 20 May 1754
22 July 1754 – 29 November 1755
François Mattei28 March 1757 – 13 March 1758
Henry Benedict Mary Clement Stuart of York2 October 1758 – 13 July 1761
19 April 1762 – 20 September 1784
Ippolito Antonio Vincenti Mareri11 April 1785 – 21 February 1794
10 June 1798 – 24 May 1802
Dionisio Ridolfini Conestabile9 August 1802 – 26 September 1803
Giovanni Giacomo Antonio Gaetano Fraschina26 March 1804 – 27 March 1837
Giuseppe Angelini21 December 1868 – ?
Cesare Sambucetti1 April 1882 – March 1911
Pio Armando Pietro Sabadel27 November 1911 – ?
10 May 1914 – 14 December 1925
24 June 1926 – 5 November 1927
Ettore Felici6 November 1927 – 9 May 1951
5 September 1951 – 17 November 2005

Sources

External links

Notes and References

  1. Corinth . Sophron . Pétridès . 10 November 2013-->.
  2. Gregory (1991), pp. 531–533
  3. Setton (1975), pp. 21–24
  4. Bon (1969), pp. 56–59
  5. Setton (1975), pp. 22–25, 36
  6. Setton (1975), pp. 36–38
  7. Bon (1969), pp. 93–94
  8. Bon (1969), pp. 478–480
  9. Bon (1969), p. 114
  10. Bon (1969), p. 92
  11. Vakalopoulos (1975), p. 209