After the danger of Byzantine reconquest of the south was over, and once these churches had consolidated their power, the Normans abandoned their persecution and initiated a policy of reconciliation and tolerance. This occurred especially under the regency of Adelaisa (or Adelaide), who after Roger’s death needed to keep the realm together for her minor son Roger II. Although the work of “Latinization” did continue intensively, it did not impede the Basilian monks from founding additional holy retreats. Referring to these foundings, Father Russo writes, “The Diocese of Nicastro was enriched more by Greek monasteries that joined the ones that were already in existence, than by the Latin sites.”

Ruins of the Benedictine Abbey

The list of these sites, although incomplete, is significant: S. Anarghiro di Mayda and Santa Veneranda at Maida; Santi Filippo and Giacomo at Feroleto; S. Biagio, S. Isidoro (“Santu Sidero”) and Santi Quaranta Martiri at Sambiase; S. Nicola di Yassaria, Santa Maria delle Scabelle, S. Costantino, S. Elia e S. Nicola di S. Maria del Carra in the woods of Carra at the outskirts of the city. Others can be added to the roster, especially beyond the plain where there one cannot find local history that doesn’t recall a holy retreat or sgrine marked by its ruins. Even the Benedictine Monastery of S. Eufemia was erected on the spot of a pre-existing Basilian holy place, and the city of Nicastro was the seat of a diocese of the Byzantine rite whose cathedral was replaced by one erected in 1101 by the Norman countess Eremberga who followed her family’s policy of Latinization of the churches by means of similar foundings and relatively rich endowments. “The district,” writes Ernesto Pontieri, “was therefore dear to the Basilian hermits and monks,” and is witnessed by the number of retreats that Guiscard assigned, as was his habit, to the Monastery of S. Eufemia, from the many retreats and holy sites scattered throughout the area.

For a long time the churches of both rites cohabited. As Scaramuzzino writes, “There were in Nicastro some Latin churches and some Greek churches, performing one rite or the other, and even up to our time we see the walls of the Church of the Holy Spirit (Chiesa dello Spirito Santo) that were built in Greek form. Despite the effort towards Latinization, “the Byzantine rite survived throughout the district, not only in the Greek monasteries but also in various villages and parishes, especially in Maida where the 'Protopapa' (=head priest) of the Church of S. Maria la Cattolica officiated in Greek until the middle of the 14th century. Local historians rarely mention the presence of the Greek rite in Nicastro, but its existence must have been very remarkable; certainly much more so than their silence would have us believe.