Italo-Albanian Chant

There are certain groups, even within the often maddeningly confused world of Eastern Christianity, that are especially small and therefore acutely prone to being overlooked. The Italo-Albanians are arguably in this category. But at least one part of their heritage will no longer be so obscure, thanks to the publication next month of Bartolomeo di Salvo, Girolamo Garofalo, and Christian Troelsgård, eds., Chants of the Byzantine Rite: The Italo-Albanian Tradition in Sicily: Canti Ecclesiastici della Tradizione Italo-Albanese in Sicilia (Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae, Subsidia) (Museum Tusculanum Press 2016), 288pp.

About this book we are told:

This book presents for the first time the complete chant repertory of an orally transmitted collection of church hymns for the celebration of the Byzantine Rite in Sicily. Cultivated by Albanian-speaking minorities since their ancestors arrived in Sicily in the late fifteenth century, this repertory was transcribed by Bartolomeo di Salvo, a Basilian monk from the monastery of Grottaferrata, and is presented here in English, Italian, and Greek.

Basilian Monasticism

As I noted recently, we are this year seeing new interest in St. Basil the Great's works, especially those pertaining to monasticism. Cambridge University Press is this very week reissuing a book on him that was originally published precisely 100 years ago:W.K. Lowther Clarke, St Basil the Great: A Study in Monasticism (CUP, 2013), 190pp.

About this book we are told:

Originally published in 1913, this book presents a detailed study of St Basil the Great and his monasticism. The main focus of the text is on Basil's ascetic writings, but information is provided on the surrounding historical context and the framework of early monasticism. Preceding the publication of this volume, there had been no detailed account of the ascetic writings and their significance for the development of early Christianity. The appendix section includes a table of dates and bibliography. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in St Basil, monasticism and asceticism.

The Basilians of Grottaferrata in Albania

The Basilians are sometimes thought to be the "bad boys" of Eastern Christianity, especially among Ukrainians, because they are and have been heavily Latinized in many ways for many centuries, betraying, inter alia, authentically Eastern monasticism and introducing into both Eastern Catholic and some Orthodox churches practices that are not aboriginal to them. (I remember very clearly reading the extremely hostile descriptions of them when I visited Pochaev in 2001, where they once ruled for a time.) It's true that they were reformed by the Jesuits along the lines of a Western order like the Jesuits. Now a new book by Ines Angeli Murzaku of Seton Hall University proposes a fresh look at them:

Ines Angeli Murzaku, Returning Home to Rome: The Basilian Monks of Grottaferatta in Albania (Athens: Analekta Kryptoferris, 2009), xxi + 309 (38 photos).

Drawing on extensive research in Vatican dicasteries, Jesuit archives in Italy, the state archives of Albania in Tiranë, the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, the University of Calabria, and other private archives in Calabria, the author sheds light on Catholic-Orthodox relations in southern Italy and Albania as well as Christian-Muslim relations. I asked Anthony O'Mahony, of Heythrop College, University of London, who has published in this area, to review this book for us in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies in 2011.