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Rh were then in a state of great decadence (p. 129). And in many churches otherwise latinized there remained certain Byzantine ceremonies, such as the blessing of the water at the Epiphany, the reading of the Epistle and Gospel on certain days, notably on Palm Sunday. Among the older generation of Italo-Greeks certain admixtures of the Roman rite had crept into the Byzantine offices; so they had what is sometimes counted as a special "Italo-Greek" rite.


 * 5. The Coming of the Albanians (Fifteenth to Sixteenth Century).

In the fifteenth century, just as the Byzantine rite in Italy seemed to be at its last gasp, it received new life from colonies of Eastern Christians who sought refuge in the West. The chief of these colonies were those of the Albanians.

The Turkish invasion of the Balkans drove numbers of Christians to the West into exile. Among these were Christian Albanians. In our time the Albanians are either Catholics of the Roman rite, Orthodox (of course, of the Byzantine rite), or Moslems. But in the fifteenth century there were many who were Uniates of the Byzantine rite. At any rate, when they came to Italy they professed to be Catholics, in union with Rome. It is not easy to be sure whether they had already been so or whether they became Uniates, perhaps found it politic to profess their union with the Pope when they arrived in Italy. Yet there is, I think, reasonable probability that at any rate many of them were already Catholics before they fled from the Turks. The most serene Republic had held large parts of their country for some time before the Turks conquered it; we know that she was not tolerant of schism. It is then quite likely that many, if not all, these Albanians had already returned to union with the Holy See before they came to Italy. There are, indeed, Albanians who protest that their nation was always Catholic, that their forbears had never lost communion with Rome. This is presumably only one more case of the pleasant illusion in which Uniates of many groups now live. Rodotà accepts this view, persuaded by the Albanian priest Don Paolo Maria Parrino.