Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Matera-Irsina

The Archdiocese of Matera-Irsina (Latin: Archidioecesis Materanensis-Montis Pelusii) is a Latin archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Basilicata, Italy. It has existed under this name since 1986. The archbishop is seated at Matera Cathedral. (Irsina Cathedral is a co-cathedral). It is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Potenza-Muro Lucano-Marsico Nuovo.

Archdiocese of Matera-Irsina Archidioecesis Materanensis-Montis Pelusii
Matera Cathedral
Location
Country	Italy
Ecclesiastical province	Potenza-Muro Lucano-Marsico Nuovo
Statistics
Area	2,020 km2 (780 sq mi)
Population - Total - Catholics	(as of 2019) 149,800 (est.) 129,800 (est.)
Parishes	56
Information
Denomination	Catholic Church
Rite	Roman Rite
Established	2 July 1954 (70 years ago)
Cathedral	Basilica Cattedrale di S. Maria Assunta della Bruna (Matera)
Co-cathedral	Concattedrale di S. Maria Assunta (Irsina)
Secular priests	68 (diocesan) 23 (religious orders) 4 Permanent Deacons
Current leadership
Pope	Francis
Archbishop	Antonio Giuseppe Caiazzo
Map
Website
Arcidiocesi di Matera-Irsini (in Italian)

On Monday, October 5, 2015, Archbishop Salvatore Ligorio was elevated by Pope Francis to be Metropolitan Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Potenza-Muro Lucano-Marsico Nuovo (in Potenza, Italy), to whose province the Archdiocese of Matera-Irsina (in Matera, Italy, and Irsina, Italy) belongs. It is not the norm, but by no means irregular to have a non-metropolitan archdiocese under a metropolitan archdiocese.^{[citation needed]}

History

The Diocese of Matera was originally a separate diocese. Its origins are not well documented. Giuseppe Cappelletti collected a list of five alleged bishops of Matera between 484 and 998, but all were actually bishops elsewhere whose cities were confused with Matera.^[1] The earliest surviving evidence of the bishops in Matera dates from 968, according to Bishop Liutprand of Cremona, when the Patriarch of Constantinople, at the command of the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas, ordered the diocese of Matera, with several other dioceses of the region, to be subordinated to the Archdiocese of Otranto and to conduct the liturgy exclusively according to the Byzantine Rite.^[2]

On 13 April 1068, Pope Alexander II issued a bull, granted the pallium to Archbishop Arnaldus of Acerenza and confirming him in the archbishopric of Acerenza, including all of the parishes and towns belonging to it, including Tricarico, Montepiloso, Gravina, and Materia. Matera, it seems, was not an independent town or bishopric yet.^[3]

The diocese of Matera^[4] was combined by a papal bull of Pope Innocent III of 4 May 1203^[5] with the Archdiocese of Acerenza to form the Archdiocese of Acerenza and Matera, and the building of the present Matera Cathedral on the site of the church of Saint Eustace began in the same year. The archbishop of Acerenza was at the same time the bishop of Matera, aeque personaliter.

On 2 July 1954, Pope Pius XII issued the bull Acheronta et Matera, in which he revived the diocese of Matera as a metropolitan archbishopric, separate from the metropolitan archdiocese of Acerenza, with its own ecclesiastical province including the dioceses of Anglona-Turso and Tricarico as its suffragans.^[6]

Pope Paul VI ordered a reorganization of the ecclesiastical provinces in southern Italy by the bull Quo aptius of 21 August 1976. The ecclesiastical provinces of Acerenza and of Matera were abolished, and a new province, that of Potenza, was created, to which both Acerenza and Matera were assigned as suffragan bishops. The episcopal authority in Matera was allowed to retain the honorary title of "archbishop".^[7]

Following the Second Vatican Council, and in accordance with the norms laid out in the council's decree, Christus Dominus chapter 40,^[8] Pope Paul VI ordered a reorganization of the ecclesiastical provinces in southern Italy. The decree "Eo quod spirituales" of 12 September 1976 created a new episcopal conference in the region called "Basilicata", to which were assigned all of the dioceses that belonged to the ecclesiastical province of Potenza, including Materana and Mons Pelusii; they had formerly belonged to the episcopal conference of "Apulia".^[9]

Matera was united on 11 October 1976 with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gravina-Montepeloso to form the Diocese of Matera e Irsina. The diocese of Gravina maintained its own integrity, and became a suffragan of the archdiocese of Bari-Bitonto.^[10]

On 3 December 1977 however the diocese was elevated to the rank of archdiocese.^[11]

The diocese, in its current configuration, was established in order to conform to Italian civil law which was embodied in the Concordat between the Vatican and the Italian Republic of 18 February 1984.^[12] After extensive consultations, Pope John Paul II decreed that the status of the bishop governing several dioceses aeque personaliter was abolished, and that the Diocese of Matera was therefore merged with the Diocese of Monte Pelosii to form a single diocese. The changes were embodied in a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops in the Roman Curia, promulgated on 30 September 1986.^[13] The seat of the merged dioceses was to be in Matera, and the official name of the diocese was to be "Archidioecesis Materanensis-Montis Pelusii".^[14] The diocesan offices (curia) was to be in Matera, as was the diocesan tribunal, the diocesan seminary, the College of Consultors, the Priests' Council, unless otherwise directed by the bishop.^[15]

Archbishops

Archbishops of Acerenza and Matera

For the period from 1203 to 1954, see Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Acerenza § Archbishops of Acerenza and Matera.

Archbishops of Matera

• Giacomo Palombella (1954–1974)
• Michele Giordano (1974 – 21 Aug 1976)

Bishop of Matera

• Michele Giordano (21 Aug – 11 Oct 1976)

Bishop of Matera e Irsina

• Michele Giordano (11 Oct 1976 – 3 Dec 1977)

Archbishop of Matera e Irsina

• Michele Giordano (3 Dec 1977 – 30 Dec 1986)

Archbishops of Matera-Irsina

• Michele Giordano (30 September 1986 – 9 May 1987, when he became Archbishop of Naples)
• Ennio Appignanesi (21 January 1988 – 19 January 1993, when he became Archbishop of Potenza-Muro Lucano-Marsico Nuovo)
• Antonio Ciliberti (6 May 1993 – 31 January 2003, when he became Archbishop of Catanzaro-Squillace)
• Salvatore Ligorio (20 March 2004 – 5 October 2015, when he became Archbishop of Potenza-Muro Lucano-Marsico Nuovo)
• Antonio Giuseppe Caiazzo (12 February 2016 – )^[16]

See also

• Matera Cathedral
• Irsina Cathedral

References

1. Cappelletti XX, p. 433: Felix of Matherae (484), Equitius of Matelica (494), Opportunus Maturanensis (721), Florus Maturanensis (869), and Joannes Maturanensis (998). Fedele Savio, "I vescovi di Manturanum," (in Italian) in: Miscellanea di studi storici in onore di Giovanni Sforza, Volume 1 (Lucca: Baroni 1920), pp. 1-9, at p. 3.
2. Paul Fridolin Kehr (1962), Regesta pontificum Romanorum. Italia pontificia, Vol.IX: Samnium—Apulia—Lucania, (in Latin), ed. Walter Holtzmann. Berlin: Weidemann, p. 453.
3. Kehr, Italia pontificia IX, p. 456, no. 6: "omnibus parochiis suis, civitatibus quoque soil. Venusio, Montemilone, Potentia, Tulbia, Tricarico, Montepiloso, Gravina, Materia, Oblano, Turri, Tursico, Latiniano, s. Quiriaco, Uriolo, exceptis his, quae ad dominicatum apost. sedis iure retinet, Montemmurrum et Armentum, quae Acherontinae eccl. recenter transierunt." Cappelletti XX, p. 433: "Alessandro II... nomina Matera tra le parocchie della diocesi di Acerenza, non già tra le sue suffraganee."
4. It is sometimes maintained that Matera was elevated to an archdiocese in the 11th century, before the union with Acerenza in 1203
5. Kehr IX, pp. 453-454.
6. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 46 (1954), pp. 522-524.
7. The bull Quo aptius (in Latin), in: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 68 (1976), pp. 593-594.
8. Christus Dominus 40. Therefore, in order to accomplish these aims this sacred synod decrees as follows: 1) The boundaries of ecclesiastical provinces are to be submitted to an early review and the rights and privileges of metropolitans are to be defined by new and suitable norms. 2) As a general rule all dioceses and other territorial divisions that are by law equivalent to dioceses should be attached to an ecclesiastical province. Therefore dioceses which are now directly subject to the Apostolic See and which are not united to any other are either to be brought together to form a new ecclesiastical province, if that be possible, or else attached to that province which is nearer or more convenient. They are to be made subject to the metropolitan jurisdiction of the bishop, in keeping with the norms of the common law. 3) Wherever advantageous, ecclesiastical provinces should be grouped into ecclesiastical regions for the structure of which juridical provision is to be made.
9. The bull Eo quod spirituales (in Latin), in: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 68 (1976), pp. 678-680.
10. The bull Apostolicis Litteris (in Latin), in: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 68 (1976), pp. 641-642.
11. Cenni storici: Arcidiocesi di Matera-Irsina (in Italian)
12. Agreement between the Holy See and the Italian Republic: Modifications to the Lateran Concordat; signed by the Italian Republic and the Holy See on 18 February 1984; ratified by the Italian Parliament on 25 March 1985.
13. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 79 (1987), pp. 732-735.
14. AAS, p. 731, no. 1:
15. AAS, p. 731, no. 5
16. S. Ecc. Mons. Antonio Giuseppe Caiazzo (in Italian) (Official diocesan biographical note)

Bibliography

• Cappelletti, Giuseppe (1870). Le chiese d'Italia: dalla loro origine sino ai nostri giorni (in Italian). Vol. vigesimo (20). Venezia: G. Antonelli. pp. 417–452.
• D'Avino, Vincenzio (1848). Cenni storici sulle chiese arcivescovili, vescovili, e prelatizie (nullius) del regno delle due Sicilie (in Italian). Naples: dalle stampe di Ranucci. pp. 316–320.
• Mariani, Maria Stella Calò (1978). La cattedrale di Matera nel mediovea e nel rinascimento. (in Italian) Istituto per l'Automazione delle Casse di Risparmio Italiane - Amilcare Pizzi, Cinisello Balsamo 1978.
• Volpe, Francesco Paolo (1818). Memorie storiche di Matera (in Italian). Stamperia Simoniana. ISBN 9788870370393.

External links

• Catholic Hierarchy: Matera
• Webdiocesi: Diocesi di Matera-Irsina (in Italian)

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