Archdiocese of Italy and Malta

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The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy and Malta is a diocese of the Church of Constantinople that was established in 1991 as the Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy and Exarchate of Southern Europe.

History

The archdiocese traces its origins to the dioceses that existed under the jurisdiction of the Church of Constantinople in southern Italy and Sicily before the Norman conquests of the eleventh century. A renewed Orthodox presence began with the arrival in Italy of refugees after the advance of the Ottoman Turks into southeastern Europe. While this presence OrthodoxChristians in Italy diminished over the ensuing centuries, further migration of Orthodox Christians into Italy occurred as result of the turmoil in southeastern Europe following World War II.

In the early twentieth century the Ecumenical Patriarchate organized an Italian ecclesiastical entity, initially in 1922, as part of the Exarchate of the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, and, then in 1963, as part of the Exarchate of the Archdiocese of Austria-Hungary,

The present archdiocese was created on November 5, 1991 under a Patriarchal and Synodical Tomos of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The cathedra of the new archdiocese was established in the Cathedral of St. George of the Greeks (San Giorgio dei Greci) in Venice, Italy, the construction of which was begun in the mid-sixteenth century as a representation church for Greek Orthodox in Italy.

Ruling metropolitans

See also

Sources