Mosynopolis

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A central plan church.

Mosynopolis (Greek: Μοσυνόπολις), of which only ruins now remain, was a city in the Roman province of Rhodope that until the 9th century was known as Maximianopolis (Μαξιμιανούπολις) or, to distinguish it from other cities of the same name, as Maximianopolis in Rhodope.[1]

History

The city of Maximianopolis appears in written sources from the 4th century on. Its fortifications were renewed by Justinian I, and it was later a base for operations against the Bulgarians. Bloody internecine conflicts in the late Byzantine Empire at the city or near its ruins when it was destroyed.[1]

The monk Ephrem[2] says that the city was captured in 1190 by Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor. The Battle of Messinopolis, in which the Bulgarias defeated Boniface I, Marquess of Montferrat, took place nearby in 1207, and was speedily followed by the destruction of Mosynopolis by Tsar Kaloyan of Bulgaria.[3]

Bishopric

Bishops of Maximianopolis in Rhodope were present at the 5th and 6th-century ecumenical councils of Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), and Constantinople II (553) and in another council of 459. From the 7th to the 9th centuries the see is referred to as archiepiscopal, giving it autocephalous status. In all these instances, the see appears under the name Maximianopolis, but in 879 it is under the name Mosynopolis that it is represented by a bishop called Paul at the Fourth Council of Constantinople (Eastern Orthodox). From the following century to the 12th, it appears with reduced status as a suffragan of Trajanopolis in Rhodope. In the 13th century it became a Latin bishopric.[1]

The see is mentioned under the name Mosynopolis also in the Notitiae Episcopatuum of Leo the Wise, about 900;[4] in that for 940;[5] in that for 1170 under the name of Misinoupolis.[6][7]

After the destruction of the city, the Patriarchate of Constantinople in August 1347 authorized the metropolitan of Trajanopolis to exercise jurisdiction in what had been the see of Maximianopolis or Mosynopolis.[1]

The bishopric is included in the Catholic Church's list of titular sees both as an archiepiscopal see under the name Maximianopolis in Rhodope[8] and as a suffragan diocese of Mosynopolis subject to Trajanopolis in Rhodope.[9]

Photographs

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Maximianoupolis.

  • Fortress: a little souther from the church.

  • A central plan church.

  • A central plan church.

  • A central plan church.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Aikaterinh Balla, "Mosynopolis-Maximianoupolis"
  2. ↑ Cæsares, V. 5695, in Patrologia Graeca, CXLIII, 216.
  3. ↑ Kiel, Machiel (1971). "Observations on the History of Northern Greece during the Turkish Rule: Historical and Architectural Description of the Turkish Monuments of Komotini and Serres, their place in the Development of Ottoman Turkish Architecture and their Present Condition". Balkan Studies 12: 417. 
  4. ↑ Heinrich Gelzer, Ungedruckte ... Notitiæ episcopatuum, 558.
  5. ↑ Gelzer, Georgii Cyprii Descriptio orbis Romani, 79.
  6. ↑ Parthey, Hierocles Synecdemus, 122.
  7. ↑ Siméon Vailhé, "Mosynoupolis" in Catholic Encyclopedia (New York 1911)
  8. ↑ Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013, ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 925
  9. ↑ Annuario Pontificio 2013, p. 934


Coordinates: 41°07′43″N 25°19′31″E / 41.12861°N 25.32528°E / 41.12861; 25.32528

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