[3] The bishop of Hydruntum (Otranto) already appears as a subject of the Patriarch of Constantinople in the Notitia Dignitatum in the time of the Emperor Leo VI (886–912).

[5] Bishop Petrus of Hydruntum (968) was raised to the dignity of Metropolitan by Polyeuctus, Patriarch of Constantinople (956-70), with the obligation to establish the Byzantine Rite throughout the new ecclesiastical province, and the authority to consecrate bishops in the churches of Acerenza, Tursi, Gravina, Matera, and Tricarico, all previously dependent on the Church of Rome.

[6] The Latin Church was introduced again after the Norman conquest, but the Byzantine Rite remained in use in several towns of the archdiocese and of its suffragans, until the sixteenth century.

On 28 September 1960, however, Pope John XXIII, with the bull "Cum a nobis", separated the diocese of Lecce from the ecclesiastical province of Otranto and made it immediately subject to the Holy See.

[13] A provincial synod was a meeting of a metropolitan archbishop with his suffragan bishops, and any other persons whom he wished to invite, such as representatives of cathedral Chapters, abbots of important monasteries, and canon lawyers.

After wide consultations among all affected parties, Pope John Paul II issued a decree on 20 October 1980, elevating Lecce to the status of metropolitan see.