Eleuterio Francesco Fortino (April 21, 1938 - September 22, 2010) was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 prelate

Prelate

A prelate is a high-ranking member of the clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin prælatus, the past participle of præferre, which means "carry before", "be set above or over" or "prefer"; hence, a prelate is one set over others.-Related...

 of the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church. Fortino, who was ordained a Catholic priest on 1962, served as the Bishop of the Eparchy of Lungro degli Albanesi

Eparchy of Lungro degli Albanesi

The Italian Catholic eparchy of Lungro degli Italo-Albanesi is in Calabria. It was created in 1919, as an eparchy directly subject to the Holy See, for members of the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church, the Roman Catholics of the Greek Rite who had emigrated, mostly from Epirus and Albania, to Calabria...

 in Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

. He also served as the Under Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity

Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity

The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity origins are associated with the Second Vatican Council which met intermittently from 1962–1965.Pope John XXIII wanted the Catholic Church to engage in the contemporary ecumenical movement...

 from 1987 until his death on September 22, 2010. Additionally, he headed the Vatican office charged with improving relations with Orthodox Christianity for ten years.

He was awarded the "Silver Rose" in 2007 for his promotion of good relations between the Vatican

Holy See

The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

and the Orthodox world. He was also the recipient of the Arberia Award in 2009.

Eleuterio Francesco Fortino died at the Tor Vergata hospital in Rome, Italy, on September 22, 2010, at the age of 72.