Church of Saint Anthony the Abbot: A Byzantine-Norman Monastic Church in Reggio Calabria
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Byzantine, Norman
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page10 sections
History
The Church of Saint Anthony the Abbot is a Greek Orthodox Christian church in Reggio Calabria, Italy, founded by monks around the year 1000 and constructed approximately in 1090. Its surviving form reflects the meeting of Byzantine Neo-Hellenism, the Greek cultural and religious tradition of the Byzantine world, with Norman Romanesque architecture, the rounded-arch masonry tradition developed under Norman rule in southern Italy. Dedicated to Saint Anthony the Abbot, an early Christian ascetic associated with the origins of Christian monasticism, the church belonged to a monastic complex overlooking the Strait of Messina.
Monastic foundation and medieval use
The monks chose the hill because it was rich in water and offered a position suitable for watching the Strait. The complex was organized according to a typikon, a set of rules and liturgical regulations governing an Eastern Christian monastery. It served both religious and practical purposes, providing a place for worship and recovery in the hill’s healthy air. Roger of Hauteville, Count of Mileto and Sicily, prayed at the church and reconsecrated it together with the monastery. The monastery had been built over an earlier Byzantine settlement, whose surviving remains were limited to its perimeter walls.
The complex later became the Royal Chapel of Roger of Hauteville. Its earliest recorded evidence dates to 1363, in documents concerning a dispute between the city of Reggio and Count Sanseverino. The disagreement involved rights, custody, and administration of the Scaccioti fair, held near the church, as well as possession of the surrounding district. Over time, authority over the church passed successively to Santa Maria di Terreti, the metropolitan church of Santa Maria Cattolica dei Greci, San Nicola dei Bianchi, San Giovanni Battista, and Santa Maria del Carmelo.
Damage, repair, and changing administration
Earthquakes repeatedly damaged the church, and Pasha Mustafa caused further destruction in 1558. In 1594, the Turkish pirate Mamud, who had landed at Catona, burned the church while raiding the territories north of Reggio. Popular devotion and alms supported repairs, including work on the roof, before the end of the sixteenth century. After the fire, however, the church no longer had a permanent chaplain. Services continued only occasionally, sustained by the continuing devotion of the citizens.
In 1600, Monsignor D’Afflitto called on Cardinal Colonna, abbot of Terreti, to provide new furnishings and repair the walls within six months. On 19 January that year, the furnishings were delivered to Agostino Plutino, who became the church’s master and procurator. The monastic complex had originally contained several masonry buildings, including a katholikon, the principal church of an Eastern Christian monastery, a defensive and observation tower, a library with a writing school, and a skevophylakion, a repository for liturgical vessels and sacred furnishings. The library points to a writing school associated with the development of the Reggio manuscript tradition.
Alterations and modern restoration
Weathering, earthquakes, building work, and pirate incursions altered the medieval church. The roof over the left nave collapsed, and the side arches were later walled up. From 1628 to 1671, the right nave served as a sacristy. At a later stage, the floor was raised, and the left nave was converted into an ossuary with two crypts. Religious services thereafter used only the central nave.
The facade walls and roof were rebuilt during the nineteenth century. Twentieth-century work included raising the bell tower. A new bell was installed during the 1920s and was stolen in the late 1990s. The church has since been restored, while the area immediately around it has been redeveloped. It is administered by the Parish of Mary Most Holy of Mount Carmel in Archi Carmine and is identified as a Greek Orthodox Christian church under the Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy.
Remains
Church layout and construction
The church stands in the hilly Archi district and preserves a gabled building derived from an original three-aisled plan. The central nave and the left lateral nave survive, while the former right lateral nave is used as the sacristy. The present complex consists of an almost rectangular nave, the left side nave, the former right side nave, and the bell tower. The building measures approximately 6.22 metres in width and 13.10 metres in length.
Red terracotta brickwork forms the principal construction, with pebbles and abundant mortar incorporated into the fabric. Much of the interior wall surface remains exposed stone and brick. Light enters through an opening in the right-hand wall. The church described in the seventeenth century was square in plan, measuring 40 palms in length and 44 palms in width, with three naves, one altar, and two entrance doors. These details preserve the earlier arrangement before later changes reduced the space used for worship.
Bell tower and cloister
The latest reconstruction of the bell tower dates to 1920, a date inscribed at its base. The tower was raised during twentieth-century works, and its later history also includes the installation and subsequent theft of a bell. To the south, on the left side of the chapel, exposed red-brick ruins identify the position of a square-plan cloister.
The surviving Romanesque remains of the cloister were reassessed after water infiltration followed the collapse of the roof coverings over the newer church. This process revealed the original plan more clearly. The cloister remains form part of the physical evidence for the wider monastic complex that once surrounded the church.
Crypts and burial spaces
Crypts
Beneath the church are two small rectangular crypts with vaulted ceilings. Each crypt is reached by a staircase, and niches in their walls were formerly used for burials. Small drainage channels and ventilation ducts are also preserved within these underground rooms. Their creation belongs to the later changes that followed the raising of the church floor and the conversion of the left nave into an ossuary.
Furnishings and devotional objects
The church’s recorded furnishings included a missal printed in Venice in 1586, a silver chalice, a corporal, and a green-and-yellow capicciola chasuble. Other items included two candlesticks, one of brass, a crucifix, a large painting of Saint Anthony, an eight-wheel bell, and a small altar bell. Surviving or recorded devotional objects also include a seventeenth-century basin from a marble holy-water font, a carved wooden statue of Saint Anthony the Abbot, and a twentieth-century painting.
