Helenopolis (titular see)
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Helenopolis (Italian Elenopoli di Bitinia) is a Catholic titular see. It was in Bithynia Prima, suffragan of Prusa. There was another Helenopolis, Helenopolis in Palaestina, suffragan of Scythopolis in Palestina Secunda; and a third, suffragan of Sardes in Lydia.
It has been identified with the modern village of Hersek, in the vilayet of Broussa. The mineral springs are those of Coury near Yalova.
[edit] History
On the southern side of the Sinus Astacenus was a place known as Drepana or Drepanon, where about 258 St. Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, was born. Near it were some famous mineral springs. In 318 Constantine gave the place the name Helenopolis, and built there a church in honour of the martyr St. Lucian; it soon grew in importance, and Constsntine lived there very often towards the end of his life.
Justinian built there an aqueduct, baths, and other monuments. It does not seem ever to have grown, and it was slightingly called Eleinou Polis, "the wretched town".
Helenopolis occurs in the Notitiae Episcopatuum, until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Lequien[1] mentions nine of its bishops. Macrinus, the first, is said to have been at the Council of Nicaea (325), but his name is not given in the authentic lists of the members of the council. About 400 the church of Helenopolis was governed by Palladius of Galatia, the friend and defender of John Chrysostom, and author of the Historia Lausiaca. The last known bishop assisted at the Photian Council in Constantinople (879).
[edit] Notes
- ^ Oriens Christianus, I, 623.
[edit] External links
This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
