Agnou (, , ) was an ancient city and bishopric in Egypt. It was located on the strip of land between the lake Burullus and the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

, near the modern village al-Hanafi al-Kubra (). It remains a Latin Catholic

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

History

Agnou was important enough in the late

Roman province The Roman provinces (, pl. ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...

Aegyptus Primus Roman Egypt was an imperial province of the Roman Empire from 30 BC to AD 642. The province encompassed most of modern-day Egypt except for the Sinai Peninsula, Sinai. It was bordered by the provinces of Crete and Cyrenaica to the west ...

to be one of the many

suffragan A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Catholic Church, a suffragan bishop leads a diocese within an ecclesiastical province other than the principal diocese, the metropolitan archdiocese; the diocese led ...

of the Metropolitan (becoming Patriarchate) of capital Alexandria, yet was to fade.

Al-Maqrizi Al-Maqrīzī (, full name Taqī al-Dīn Abū al-'Abbās Aḥmad ibn 'Alī ibn 'Abd al-Qādir ibn Muḥammad al-Maqrīzī, ; 1364–1442) was a medieval Egyptian historian and biographer during the Mamluk era, known for his interest in the Fat ...

describes Agnou as a fortified coastal city and says that during the

Arab conquest of Egypt The Arab conquest of Egypt, led by the army of Amr ibn al-As, took place between 639 and 642 AD and was overseen by the Rashidun Caliphate. It ended the seven-century-long Roman Egypt, Roman period in Egypt that had begun in 30 BC and, more broa ...

the ruler of the city named Talma () had a dispute with

Amr ibn al-As Amr ibn al-As ibn Wa'il al-Sahmi (664) was an Arab commander and companion of Muhammad who led the Muslim conquest of Egypt and served as its governor in 640–646 and 658–664. The son of a wealthy Qurayshite, Amr embraced Islam in and was ...

concerning the payment of

jizya Jizya (), or jizyah, is a type of taxation levied on non-Muslim subjects of a state governed by Sharia, Islamic law. The Quran and hadiths mention jizya without specifying its rate or amount,Sabet, Amr (2006), ''The American Journal of Islamic Soc ...

, which led to him rebelling and joining the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

forces marching from

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

to Nikiou, after they recaptured the city in 646. They plundered and looted villages on their way, causing a major insurrection and shift of loyalty among the Egyptian population. The Byzantines were ultimately defeated and Talma himself was captured by the Arabs. The locals demanded his execution but Amr spared him, leading to Agnou pledging alliance to the Muslims.

George of Cyprus George of Cyprus (; Latinized as ''Georgius Cyprius'') was a Greek Byzantine geographer of the early seventh century. Nothing is known of his life save that he was a Byzantine Greek born at Lapithos in the island of Cyprus. He is known for his ...

mentions Agnou as the third mouth of the Nile. The Muslim records about Agnou's location are contradictory. Some authors (

Ibn Hawqal Muḥammad Abū’l-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal (), also known as Abū al-Qāsim b. ʻAlī Ibn Ḥawqal al-Naṣībī, born in Nisibis, Al-Jazira (caliphal province), Upper Mesopotamia; was a 10th-century Arab Muslim writer, geographer, and chronic ...

, al-Maqrizi) place it between al-Burullus and Rashid, which corresponds to older sources, while

al-Yaqubi ʾAbū al-ʿAbbās ʾAḥmad bin ʾAbī Yaʿqūb bin Ǧaʿfar bin Wahb bin Waḍīḥ al-Yaʿqūbī (died 897/8), commonly referred to simply by his nisba al-Yaʿqūbī, was an Arab Muslim geographer. Life Ya'qubi was born in Baghdad to a fam ...

mistakenly places it between Rashid and Alexandria under the name Ikhnu (). The names Iknhu and Ignu are interchangeable as seen in the name of the corresponding Medieval Egyptian kura.

Titular see

The diocese was nominally restored in 1933 as a Latin Catholic

titular bishopric A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbish ...

. It is vacant since decades, having had the following incumbents of the lowest (episcopal) rank : * Havryil Blazhovskyi, O.S.B.M. (1738.09.12 – 1742.12.20) * Richard Patrick Smith (1837.02.21 – 1845.05.28) (later Archbishop*) * Thomas John Feeney, S.J. (1951.05.10 – 1955.09.09) * Paul Nguyễn Văn Bình (1955.09.20 – 1960.11.24) (later Archbishop*) * Michel-Louis Vial (1961.02.08 – 1963.12.17)

Source and External links

GCatholic with titular incumbent bio links

References

{{Subject bar , portal1= Catholicism , portal2= Egypt Catholic titular sees in Africa Former populated places in Egypt