History
The first known bishop was Petrus, to whom St. Gregory the Great refers in 596; and there is record of his two successors: Sabinus (599) and Petrus (601); Bishop Marcus (about 807) is believed to be the author of the liturgical office for Holy Saturday.
Bishop Petrus (958) was raised to the dignity of Metropolitan by Polyeuctus, Patriarch of Constantinople (956-70), with the obligation to establish the Greek Rite throughout the new ecclesiastical province. The Latin Rite was introduced again after the Norman conquest, but the Greek Rite remained in use in several towns of the archdiocese and of its suffragans, until the sixteenth century.
In 1818 the diocese of Castro, formerly a suffragan of Otranto, was united to it. Castro's bishops are known from 1137; among them was John Parisi, killed in 1296 by Hector, a Canon of Otranto.
The suffragans of Otranto were Gallipoli, Lecce and Ugento.
In 1980 it was demoted, losing its suffragans (and hence metropolitan status), to become an archbishopric within the province of the archdiocese of Lecce.
Read more about this topic: Roman Catholic Archdiocese Of Otranto
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