A seminary for future priests of the eparchy – equivalent, in the Oriental Churches, to a “diocese” in the West – of Lungro (Cosenza) will be opened shortly, reports the bishop Ercole Lupinacci, in a letter to priests and faithful of the Byzantine-Catholic rite. The seven seminarians that have hitherto studied in other institutes will attend the new seminary, the first in the diocese. The Church of Lungro, writes the bishop, possesses “a treasure of spiritual values peculiar to the oriental tradition that must be transmitted and kept alive with renewed vigour and conviction, both to make the faithful more aware of them, and to fulfil our ecumenical mission”. Monsignor Lupinacci emphasises that “the good represented by the traditional values of the arbëreshë family” (i.e. the values of the Albanian community in Southern Italy) “must be reaffirmed, cultivated and strengthened”. The eparchy of Lungro (33,000 inhabitants and 29 parishes) was established by Benedict XV on 13 February 1919: it brings together under the jurisdiction of a single bishop of the Byzantine-Catholic rite the Italo-Albanian communities of Calabria, Basilicata, Apulia and Abruzzo that have faithfully preserved the rite of their ancestors.
