In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • La chiesa latina in oriente, Volume II: Hierarchia latina orientis
  • Nelson H. Minnich
La chiesa latina in oriente, Volume II: Hierarchia latina orientis. Edited by Giorgio Fedalto. Second edition. [Studi religiosi, 3.] (Verona: Casa Editrice Mazziana. 2006. Pp. 301. €35,00.)

In 1976 Giorgio Fedalto published a companion volume to the series initiated by Konrad Eubel (1842–1923) known as Hierarchia catholica medii (et recentioris) aevi that provided, based on Vatican documentation, a chronological listing of popes, cardinals, archbishops, and bishops according to the Latin name of their diocese in alphabetical order: volume 1 covering the years 1198 to 1431, 2: 1431 to 1503, and 3: 1503 to 1592, the first edition being published in 1898–1910, the second edition revised by Ludwig Schmitz-Kallenberg and published in 1913–23, with subsequent volumes by their successors. While Eubel's series included the whole Church, Fedalto has limited himself to the dioceses in the patriarchates of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople that came into the possession of Westerners through the crusades. He also includes dioceses in lands evangelized during Latin medieval expansion into the Crimea, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbijan, Persia, India, Central Asia, and China that ended in the first half of the fourteenth century, but listing the appointment of an archbishop for Beijing as late as 1426 (p. 73). Fedalto limits himself to bishops who resided in their sees or at least could have, given the political situation. Once the territories were retaken by the Arabs, Ottomans, or Byzantines, Latin prelates usually were no longer able to reside in their sees and they lived in the West, becoming titular bishops in partibus infidelium or schismatorum. On some Aegean islands the Latin church survived after the Ottoman conquests mostly of the sixteenth century or after the island became a tributary state of the Ottomans, with the archbishop of Naxos now receiving his red berat from the sultan and a bishop remaining on Tino. Nonetheless, Fedalto terminates his listing with the fall of [End Page 529] Western political control of the islands. In the case of Nazareth and Bethlehem that continued to have lands in the West annexed to them (e.g., near Bari), Fedalto terminates his listing of prelates once the crusaders lost control of their Palestinian lands. For a listing of the titular bishops one should consult the Eubel series. Fedalto differs from that series by also listing the bishops appointed by the Avignonese and Pisan popes and by having recourse to non Vatican documents such as chronicles to document the presence of bishops who were elected or appointed locally with metropolitan rather than papal confirmation. At times Rome appointed its own rival candidate who could not secure possession of the church. The volume concludes with indices of personal names organized alphabetically by their first names, of sees and localities, and of the division of patriarchates into metropolitan provinces subdivided into dioceses.

The second edition is about twenty pages longer with an updated bibliography (pp. 17–27) and new references, where relevant, for each diocese. Fedalto documents the presence of additional bishops (e.g., for Mopsuestia, Megara, Mytilene, Naxivan, etc.) and updates the present political divisions, especially following the fall of the Soviet Union. Given the new information contained in the second edition, it should replace the earlier one. Scholars are indebted to Fedalto for his painstaking labors.

Nelson H. Minnich
The Catholic University of America
...

pdf

Share