This
Is How Coenobitism Grew Out Of Eremitism Not Only In Calabria, But In
Every Part Of The World Which Has Been Afflicted With These
Eccentrics.
Go to Mount Athos, if you wish to see specimens of all the
different stages conveniently arranged upon a small area.
. . .
This convent of Patir exercised a great local influence as early as the
tenth century; then, towards the end of the eleventh, it was completely
rebuilt without and reorganized within. The church underwent a thorough
restoration in 1672. But it was shattered, together with the rest of the
edifice, by the earthquake of 1836 which, Madonna Achiropita
notwithstanding, levelled to the ground one-half of the fifteen thousand
houses then standing at Rossano.
These monastic establishments, as a general rule, were occupied later on
by the Benedictines, who ousted the Basileans and were supplanted, in
their turn, by popular orders of later days like the Theatines. Those
that are conveniently situated have now been turned into post offices,
municipalities, and other public buildings - such has been the common
procedure. But many of them, like this of Patir, are too decayed and
remote from the life of man. Fiore, who wrote in 1691, counts up 94
dilapidated Basilean monasteries in Calabria out of a former total of
about two hundred; Patir and thirteen others he mentions as having, in
his day, their old rites still subsisting. Batiffol has recently gone
into the subject with his usual thoroughness.
Nothing is uglier than a modern ruin, and the place would assuredly not
be worth the three hours' ride from Rossano were it not for the church,
which has been repaired, and for the wondrous view to be obtained from
its site.
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