The Italo-Byzantine Monastery of St Mary of
Grottaferrata, 20 kilometers south of
Rome, was founded by Saint Nilus the Younger in 1004. After the
fall of Constantinople, many Greeks sought refuge in Italy and the
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople appointed a series of
metropolitans, who resided in
Venice from 1537 to 1797. But it was not until 1539 that the
Greek community of Venice was authorised to begin building the church of San Giorgio dei Greci which still stands in the centre of the city on the canal known as the . The church was completed in 1573 and is the oldest of the churches of the Greek diaspora in western Europe. In 1557, Venice's Greek community had nominated Pachomios, bishop of Zante and Cephalonia, to act in their church as bishop, which he apparently did for one year only. In 1577 a Greek Orthodox archbishop resided in Venice and was recognized as the religious head of the Greek Orthodox community in Venice, though with the non-Venetian title of
Archbishop of Philadelphia. == Archbishops of Italy ==