Cerenzia

The village you see today was born in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the people of Cerenzia left the old rock for good and moved further west: up there water was lacking and there was malaria. The place they abandoned was called Akerentia, or Acherontia, and took its name from the Acheron — the old name of the Lese, the river that runs at the foot of the cliff. It had been a bishop's seat since about 960, and it is recorded in the Notitia of the patriarchate of Constantinople; until the Norman conquest the liturgy there was in Greek, of the Byzantine rite. In 1205 the count of Crotone tried to put his own chaplain on the episcopal chair instead of the bishop the chapter had elected. Then, in the middle of the fourteenth century, malaria and the lack even of drinking water began to empty the city: in 1342 people begin to say «bishop of Cerenzia and Cariati», and in 1437 pope Eugene IV erected the diocese of Cariati, joining it to the old see. When the council of Trent obliged bishops to reside in one place, Cariati was chosen, on the sea and exposed to Turkish raids, rather than isolated and unhealthy Cerenzia.

The earthquake of 1783 struck the final blow. Today Akerentia is an archaeological park, with excavation campaigns that have been going on for years: in 2007 what they call the Prince's Palace was partly dug. In the parish church of San Teodoro, down in the new village, is kept the silver processional cross that came from the old cathedral, together with an eighteenth-century wooden crucifix and two old bells: the first, with a Greek cross, is dated 1545, the second is of 1780. In the main square, finally, there is a bronze bas-relief by the sculptor Treccani, dedicated to the women who picked the olives of Cerenzia: the women who actually did that work.