The biannual Dionysian Colloquium was held in Calabria, in the South of Italy, under the direction of Professor Giorgio Barone Adesti, with a day of sessions at each of the two academic institutions in the title above, which organised the event together with the Institute of St Dyonisius Exiguus of the Orthodox Diocese of Romania in Italy.Footnote ¹ The subject was ‘The Ecclesiastical Province: canon law foundations, historical experiences and contemporary praxis’ and the aim was to consider the historical origins and the continuing survival of the ecclesiastical province and of metropolitan jurisdiction.

A large population of Eastern European migrants in Italy, particularly Romanian construction workers in the South, has raised issues of overlapping jurisdictions between a number of Orthodox and Oriental rite churches and the dominant Roman Catholic Latin Church. This has been particularly significant in respect of the different expectations for religious education in state schools. Calabria is rich in Byzantine remains and was a trade gateway to Italy for the Byzantine Empire. The bishop of the Romanian Orthodox diocese in Italy and a number of his clergy were active particpants in the Colloqium, which concluded with a liturgy in the Byzantine monastery at Stilo, restored by the Romanians over the last ten years as a living community and centre for worship.

Papers were presented on the different origins and the varied provincial structures of the Roman Catholic Church and of churches represented by speakers from Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia. The Colloquium also included a contribution discussing the concept of the Province in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. The papers elucidated the complex web of different Orthodox and Catholic Oriental churches which have evolved from the original Patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandra and Rome, with the early addition of further Patriarchates in post-destruction Jerusalem and Constantinople; the distinction was explained between Patriarchal churches and others which emerged with independent systems of governance as autocephalous daughter churches or in a further stage of church planting as autonomous churches.

The priority between different churches would seem to vary, from merely recognising a primacy of honour, to a defined hierarchy of authority. The spread and intermingling of populations of believers from the different traditions has created tensions where particular churches have extended their jurisdiction into new territories, particularly by creating new provinces or dioceses. Despite ultimate submission to the Papal Magisterium, the Oriental Catholic churches also have to contend with overlapping jurisdictions. Furthermore, in the Roman Catholic Church there is pressure for a more active provincial structure with lay participation rather than the exclusive National Conferences of bishops. At the present stage of differences in the Anglican Communion the tradition of territorial provinces would also seem to face tensions, with the prospect of dioceses or parishes, in particular autonomous churches, seceding to another church by putting themselves under the metropolitical jurisdiction of a province and a church based in a different territory.