The patron saint of Rometta is Saint Leo, celebrated on 20 February. Between 725 and 780 the saint, bishop of Catania known as Saint Leo of Ravenna or the Thaumaturge, found asylum in Rometta after opposing the iconoclastic edicts of Byzantine emperor Constantine V, who had ordered his arrest: having taken refuge in various centres of the Nebrodi, Leo finally reached Rometta, where he retired to the wooded Peloritan hills and lived for some years in a cave as a hermit, before returning to Catania, where he died in 789.
Rometta preserves important traces of its Byzantine history, including the church commonly called the «Santissimo Salvatore», whose exact dedication is actually «Santa Maria dei Cerei» or «Santa Maria della Candelora»: built between the 5th and 6th centuries, it has a Greek-cross plan set within a quadrilateral. From 1320 to 1342, during the unrest of the Sicilian Vespers, the church and monastery of the Candelora hosted, with the permission of Frederick III of Sicily, the community of nuns from the nearby monastery of Santa Chiara di Basicò. Reconquered by the Byzantines in 1038 thanks to the expedition of George Maniakes, Rometta returned to the Arabs in 1043 and was finally conquered by the Normans in the 11th century.
