 All connection with the Eastern Churches was finally severed during the eleventh century, as Bari became a direct ecclesiastical dependency of Rome.So before the 10th c was over, the top ranking Orthodox episcopal dignitary throughout Byzantine Italy, became the archbishop of Melfi, in spite of Bari remaining the center of Byzantine authority in the area, as the seat of the katepano of Italia until the capture of the city by the Normans in 1071.Ironically the archbishop of Bari that irreversibly distanced his see from Byzantium, was Byzantius (1025), who obtained from the pope the privilege of consecrating his suffragans.