Ecclesiastical Region of Sicily

In the last decades of the twentieth century, the historiography on Sicilian dioceses passed the erudite phase in favor of the adoption of the historical method. It is enough to limit ourselves to some data to grasp this passage. Works such as the De rebus Siculis decades duae, by the Dominican Tommaso Fazello (1558), re-edited and corrected by the Benedictine from Catania Vito Maria Amico in 1749-1753;
sacred Sicily, by the Neto abbot Rocco Pirri, published in 1646, with amendments by Mongitore and additions by Amico, re-edited in 1733;
the Vitae Sanctorum Siculorum by the Syracusan Jesuit Ottavio Gaetani, published posthumously in 1657;
the History of the Church in Sicily, by the Benedictine Domenico Gaspare Lancia di Brolo published in 1880, are texts which are usually referred to for the reconstruction of the events of the Sicilian dioceses and the chronotaxis of the bishops, especially for the first centuries.

Gams, for the Series episcoporum Ecclesiae catholicae (1873), and Lanzoni for the dioceses of Italy from the origins to the beginning of the century also drew to a certain extent. VII (1927). Although there is still no history of dioceses for Sicily, as has happened in recent years for other Italian regions, one can nevertheless draw on the studies of De Gregorio, Longhitano, Magnano, Mammino, Naro, Schirò, Sindoni, Stabile, Zito;
as well as research and publications published on the occasion of particular anniversaries: the same for the foundation anniversaries of the dioceses of Acireale, Caltagirone, Caltanissetta, Mazara del Vallo, Nicosia, Noto. While for the first five centuries of Sicilian Christianity we can now draw on the detailed and detailed examination of historiographical, archaeological and epigraphic data, published by Francesco Paolo Rizzo (2006), which highlights paths, acquisitions and perspectives. At the present state of research, it is now established that the ecclesiastical structure of Sicily is not due to the sending of disciples to the island who were consecrated bishops by the apostle Peter. Based on a documentary apparatus dating back to the VII-IX century, this opinion has very dubious supports and belongs to a precise literary genre, developed to attribute the apostolicity of the episcopal see to the Byzantine churches and determine the supremacy of its own seat over the others of the island.