Archdiocese of Palermo
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Archdiocese of Palermo Archidioecesis Panormitana |
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Palermo Cathedral
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| Location | |
| Country | Italy |
| Ecclesiastical province | Palermo |
| Statistics | |
| Area | 1,366 km2 (527 sq mi) |
| Population - Total - Catholics |
(as of 2013) 912,800 (est.) 905,700 (est.) (99.2%) |
| Parishes | 178 |
| Information | |
| Denomination | Catholic Church |
| Rite | Roman Rite |
| Established | 1st Century |
| Cathedral | Cattedrale di l’Assunzione di Maria |
| Secular priests | 233 (diocesan) 245 (Religious Orders) |
| Current leadership | |
| Pope | Francis |
| Archbishop | Corrado Lorefice |
| Emeritus Bishops |
Salvatore De Giorgi Paolo Romeo |
| Map | |
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| Website | |
| www.arcidiocesi.palermo.it | |
The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Palermo (Latin: Archidioecesis Panormitana) was founded as the Diocese of Palermo in the first century and raised to the status of archdiocese in the 11th century. The Archbishop of Palermo is Corrado Lorefice.
The archdiocese has the following suffragans in the ecclesiastical Province of Palermo:
Palermo is just south of a major active seismic zone, and is subject to frequent earthquakes and occasional inundations (tsunamis). The events of 1693, 1726 and 1823 were particularly destructive.
Pope Gregory I personally founded six monasteries in Sicily, including the monstery of S. Hermes at Palermo, according to Ugo Benigni in his article on Sicily in the Catholic Encyclopedia. He also founded the monastery of S. Hadrian and the Praetoritanum. Ugo Benigni attributes this interest to the numbers of bishops and monks who emigrated from Africa as a result of the policy of the Arian Vandals to the Orthodox Christians.
In 718 the Emperor Leo III the Isaurian (718–741) suppressed a revolt in Sicily, and then detached southern Italy and Sicily from the metropolitan jurisdiction of the Pope in Rome. In the ninth century, the Patriarch of Constantinople raised the See of Palermo to the rank of Metropolitan of all of Sicily. A protest against these actions was entered by Pope Nicholas I (858–867), in a letter of 25 September 860 to the Emperor Michael III.
Benigni states, "Concerning the state of the Sicilian Church during the Saracen domination we have no information: not the name of a single bishop is known." This is misleading. There were bishops, but they were part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, not that of Rome, and Constantinople was in communion with Rome until the Great Schism of 1054. In 883, Pope Marinus I paid a ransom to the Emir of Palermo for the Archbishop of Syracuse and the bishop of Malta, who were being held in prison in Palermo. In 897, the Archbishop of Palermo was Sofronios (or Sonfronius). In 930, there was a seminary in operation under the direction of the Archbishop of Palermo; when Eustatius was about to pay the 12,000 'krus' per annum which was owed, the Collector, who noticed the extreme poverty of the students, gave part of the funds to the Archbishop for the benefit of the seminary. In 957 an Archbishop named Arimattea was already occupying the See; in 964, Archbishop Arimattea was abused and imprisoned by the Grand Mufti of Palermo, from which he died. In 965, the Archbishop of Palermo was Andreas, who had been Vicar of Archbishop Arimattea. In 976, according to Arabic sources, the Archbishop of Palermo died, and the priests and monks elected a new Archbishop named Ananiah, who had been Vicar of his predecessor. The Patriarch of Constantinople (Anthony the Studite) was requested by an embassy from Palermo to approve the election, which he did, expressing the wish that the Archbishop-elect should come to Constantinople and be consecrated by him. The Emperor did not approve of these patriarchal pretensions, and the Patriarch renounced them. The priests and monks told the Emir of Sicily that the custom had been for the bishops of Sicily to consecrate the Archbishop. They asked permission to write to the Pope, which was refused.
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Wikipedia