Page:Uniate Eastern Churches.pdf/138

108 But, while Rodotà was writing his book, the "strepito forense" had not yet died out. The Vicar General of the diocese was writing books against the Protopapa.

Near Reggio, at Oppido, the Byzantine rite remained till the fifteenth century. Then the bishop, Jerome di Napoli, an Augustinian friar (1449-1472), introduced that of Rome. After his death Sixtus IV (1471-1482) united the Sees of Oppido and Gerace.

Gerace had the Byzantine rite till the fifteenth century. Here the bishops, too, were of this rite (p. 98). The most famous Bishop of Gerace was Barlaam, the anti-Hesychast. He was a Greek of Calabria. He came to Constantinople in the early fourteenth century, in the reign of Andronikos III (1328-1341); and there, having turned Orthodox, wrote books against the Catholics. Andronikos sent him on an embassy to the Pope at Avignon (Benedict XII, 1334-1342), to try to arrange reunion. Nothing came of this; but already he had distinguished himself as an opponent of the Hesychast movement, then just beginning. As the Orthodox Church accepted Hesychasm, Barlaam was condemned by it in a synod in 1341. Then he came back to Italy, returned to the Catholic Church, and was made Bishop of Gerace. Barlaam had some reputation as a Greek scholar. He taught Greek to Boccaccio, Petrarca, Paolo Perugino. Boccaccio thought much of his learning. Leo Allatius refutes his