Until 1883 Messina hosted two different religious institutions: the episcopal Archdiocese and the Basilian Archimandritate with two different religious chiefs, the archbishop and the archimandrite. After the Italian unification, the two titles were unified in the figure of the archbishop.

The Archimanditate, as an institution, was made by Roger I and his son Roger II in a big area in the ending part of the San Raineri peninsula. This institution had jurisdiction over the majority of Sicilian and Calabrian Basilian convents, it had lots of properties and had complete administrative and ecclesiastical autonomy. In 1535 Charles V ordered to reinforce the city walls expropriating the area in which the monastery stood. Basilian monks abandoned the San Raineri peninsula and moved to the north of the town, in the so called Spianata dei Greci (were now there is the Regional Museum). 

After the earthquake of 1908 the building fell down and Mgr. Angelo Paino obtained a debris area in which he made built the new SS. Salvatore construction. It has a rectangular shape with two elevations and, in the middle, it has a big façade on which a statue of the Blessing Christ dominates. In the interior, the church has three naves separated by Corinthian columns decorated by Baroque-style stuccos. The vault, the frescos and the decorations, damaged after the bombing of the Second World War, were restored. Today there are also a school, a cinema, a gym and a parish youth club managed by Salesian Priests.