The Eparchy of Phoenix is not only home for Ruthenian Byzantine Catholics, but also to Italo-Greek Catholics.  One of our parishes, Our Lady of Wisdom in Las Vegas, Nevada started out with humble beginnings, but is now the home of a vibrant Italo-Greek community.  One of many famous Italo- Greek clergy in the history of the Italo Greek Byzantine Catholic Church is Father Giorgio Guzzetta, C.O. of the Congregation of the Oratorians.  Enjoy the article and the parish link

Giorgio Guzzetta

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Giorgio Guzzetta ( Gjergji Guxeta in Albanian ; Piana degli Albanesi , April 23, 1682 - Partinico , 21 November 1756 ) was a priest of the Byzantine rite Italian of minority Albanians of Sicily .

Father Servant of God , the Apostle of the Albanians of Sicily, was the founder of the ' Oratorio San Filippo Blacks in Piana degli Albanesi for celibate priests of the Byzantine rite and promoter, with Papas Antonio Brancato , the foundation of the College of Mary for young women arbëreshe , doing everything consistently in defense of the Eastern rite and cultural and linguistic identity of his people.

He was the founder and creator of the first and oldest center albanologico ^[1] , the Italo-Albanian Seminary in Palermo ( 1734 ), the institution which provided crucial support to the preservation and development of cultural and religious heritage of the Sicilian-Albanian communities and which became a veritable hotbed of albanologici studies not comparable or retrievable, until the eighteenth century , in no other country in Europe or the Balkans for the multiplicity and variety of his intellectual and social activities ^[1] .

His name is linked to the first discovery of the oldest text in Albanian language known, the Meshari of Gjon Buzuku , in 1740 .

His personality arouses the interest in a literal, cultural and religious, and especially the Association for the ' Christian East ( 1929 ). There is, by 1934 , his cause of beatification .

The Servant of God Father Giorgio Guzzetta was born in Piana degli Albanesi on 23 April 1682 by a family in poor economic conditions. Parents, Lorenzo Guzzetta and Catherine Mamola, farmers, had preserved the traditions of the homeland and assured to all eight children an ' education .

After completing studies at the letters of the Jesuits of Trapani , he entered the archdiocesan seminary of Monreale , on which they depended ecclesiastically the colonies Albanians of Sicily that, during the XV - XVI century , had taken refuge for political and religious reasons in Italy . Received his doctorate in "Sacred Theology", he was hired as a translator of classic greek to the court of Cardinal Archbishop Francesco del Giudice who promoted prosegretario. The prospect of a brilliant career, and the proposal to accompany thecardinal in Spain , not deterred by the cleric called to a priestly life lived in simplicity and full apostolic dedication.

After leaving the diocese of Monreale he decided to enter into the congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Blacks priests in Palermo ( December 1706 ), renouncing the Byzantine rite to receive priestly ordination, and to devote himself lovingly to cultural and religious traditions of his Albanian people . Ordained a priest in 1707 was under his spiritual guidance knights , princes and bishops .

In 1716 he was able to help apostolic his land, founding, for its initiative, the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Blacks ( Rritiri ) for celibate priests of the Byzantine rite , also called greek, who dedicated themselves, in poverty, to raise and educate Albanian youth of Sicily .

In 1734 he founded the Italo-Albanian Seminary of Palermo for the youth of the Byzantine rite of the Albanian colonies of Sicily , reaching the goal of a cultivated desire since the years of adolescence , that of a seminary where future priests, which had been forced to Latinos attend seminars, they could be trained in the uses of the Byzantine worship and in the nation's linguistic and cultural traditions Albanians .

With Papas Antonio Brancato promoted also the foundation of Mary's College of Piana degli Albanesi ( 1733 ) for the formation of the country's girls and Sicilian-Albanian colonies.

He strove for the establishment of a bishopric in the Byzantine rite -Greek for Albanians of Sicily , which was ordered after her death with the Bull of Pope Pius VI on 6 February 1784 and approved by the Royal Decree of 10 January 1785 . He did not see the building had been hoping for an Italo-Albanian Church according to their own rite, only built between 1919 and 1937 . Forerunner of the Second Vatican Council , he worked for the return of ' Christian East to the unity of the Church .

Connoisseur of classical culture , he wrote, among other things, "Cronica of Macedonia until the times of Skanderbeg", l ' "Etymological" and the still unreleased "De Albanensibus Italiae rite excolendis, ut sites totique PROSINT Ecclesiae," which contains one of the first contributions to the description and study of the Albanian language .

His name is linked to the first discovery of the oldest text in Albanian language known, the Missal of Gjon Buzuku , found by chance in 1740 in the library of the College of Propaganda Fides Albanian Gjon Nikollë Kazazit ( 1702 - 1752 ), Archbishop of Skopje , which She bothers to send a copy to Guzzetta.

He died, tested by a long illness that made ​​him blind and fatigue of years, on November 21 1756 in the convent of the fathers Carmelites of Partinico and was buried in the Church of St. Ignatius all'Olivella in Palermo . The incorrupt remains of Father Giorgio Guzzetta, which is being the cause of beatification , since 1954 rest in the Cathedral of Piana degli Albanesi .