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.
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]
| Name | Tenure | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Walter | 1212 – after 1215 | |
| Unknown | 10 June 1224 – ? | |
| Unknown | 1228 | |
| Peter of Confluenzia | February 1268 – 5 April 1278 | |
| William of Moerbeke | 9 April 1278 – ? | |
| Robert | 22 October 1286 – ? | |
| Matthew of Osenio | ca. 1294 | |
| Louis | ca. 1300 | |
| John of Spoleto | 18 January 1306 – 5 June 1307 | Apostolic administrator |
| James | 5 June 1307 – ? | |
| Bartholomew | ca. 1312 | |
| James | ca. 1340 – 7 January 1349 | |
| Francis of Massa | 29 March 1349 – ? | |
| Paul | 15 March 1363 – ca. 1379 | |
| Matthew | 19 September 1386 – ? | |
| Stephen | 8 July 1390 – 15 March 1395 | |
| Peter John | 26 April 1395 - 12 January 1396 | |
| Biagio | 12 January 1396 – ? | |
| John | ca. 25 June 1407 | |
| Antony | ? | |
| Peter Rainaldi | 14 February 1421 – ? | |
| Name | Tenure | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 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 Balsarini | 19 December 1698 – 1699 | |
| Angelo Maria Carlini | 11 December 1702 – 1715 | |
| Mondilio Orsini (Mundillus Orsini) | 26 June 1724 – 20 November 1724 | |
| Giuseppe Spinelli | 5 September 1725 – 15 December 1734 | |
| 14 March 1735 – 20 May 1754 | ||
| 22 July 1754 – 29 November 1755 | ||
| François Mattei | 28 March 1757 – 13 March 1758 | |
| Henry Benedict Mary Clement Stuart of York | 2 October 1758 – 13 July 1761 | |
| 19 April 1762 – 20 September 1784 | ||
| Ippolito Antonio Vincenti Mareri | 11 April 1785 – 21 February 1794 | |
| 10 June 1798 – 24 May 1802 | ||
| Dionisio Ridolfini Conestabile | 9 August 1802 – 26 September 1803 | |
| Giovanni Giacomo Antonio Gaetano Fraschina | 26 March 1804 – 27 March 1837 | |
| Giuseppe Angelini | 21 December 1868 – ? | |
| Cesare Sambucetti | 1 April 1882 – March 1911 | |
| Pio Armando Pietro Sabadel | 27 November 1911 – ? | |
| 10 May 1914 – 14 December 1925 | ||
| 24 June 1926 – 5 November 1927 | ||
| Ettore Felici | 6 November 1927 – 9 May 1951 | |
| 5 September 1951 – 17 November 2005 | ||