Parishes 80 Rite Roman Rite Area 800 km² Archbishop Donato Negro | Denomination Catholic Church Established 1th Century Country Italy | |
 | ||
Population
- Total
- Catholics (as of 2013)
202,400 (est.)
201,400 (est.) (99.5%) Cathedral Cattedrale di Maria SS. Annunziata Ecclesiastical province Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lecce | ||
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Otranto (Latin: Archidioecesis Hydruntina) is a see of the Catholic Church in Italy. The seat of the diocese is at Otranto Cathedral in the city of Otranto, Apulia. It is a suffragan of the archdiocese of Lecce.
The current titular is Donato Negro.
History
The first known bishop was Petrus, to whom St. Gregory the Great refers in 596; and there is record of his two successors: Sabinus (599) and Petrus (601); Bishop Marcus (about 807) is believed to be the author of the liturgical office for Holy Saturday.
Bishop Petrus (958) was raised to the dignity of Metropolitan by Polyeuctus, Patriarch of Constantinople (956-70), with the obligation to establish the Byzantine Rite throughout the new ecclesiastical province. The Latin Church was introduced again after the Norman conquest, but the Byzantine Rite remained in use in several towns of the archdiocese and of its suffragans, until the sixteenth century.
In 1818 the diocese of Castro, formerly a suffragan of Otranto, was united to it. Castro's bishops are known from 1137; among them was John Parisi, killed in 1296 by Hector, a Canon of Otranto.
The suffragans of Otranto were Gallipoli, Lecce, until September 28, 1960 belonged to the ecclesiastical province of Otranto when Pope John XXIII with the bull Cum a nobis was separated the ecclesiastical province of Otranto becoming immediately subject to the Holy See and Ugento.
October 20, 1980 when Pope John Paul II erected with bull Conferentia Episcopalis Apuliae the ecclesiastical province of Lecce and therefore the Archdiocese of Otranto it joins.