Gratini () is a village of Rhodope regional unit in northern

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

, 13 km north of

Komotini Komotini (, , ), is a city in the Modern regions of Greece, region of East Macedonia and Thrace, northeastern Greece and its capital. It is also the capital of the Rhodope (regional unit), Rhodope. It was the administrative centre of the Rhodope- ...

. It is part of the municipal unit of Komotini.

History

The village first appears in the late

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 ...

era, as the town of Gratzianous (η Γρατζιανούς), while Ottoman documents mention it as Iğrican and Ağricanhišar. The late medieval village may possibly be identical to the ancient city of Gratianopolis, named after Emperor

Gratian Gratian (; ; 18 April 359 – 25 August 383) was emperor of the Western Roman Empire from 367 to 383. The eldest son of Valentinian I, Gratian was raised to the rank of ''Augustus'' as a child and inherited the West after his father's death in ...

(r. 367–383), whose bishop is recorded as taking part in the

First Council of Ephesus The Council of Ephesus was a council of Christian bishops convened in Ephesus (near present-day Selçuk in Turkey) in AD 431 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius II. This third ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church th ...

in 431. The town played a prominent role in the Byzantine civil wars of the mid-14th century. In 1344, during the war of 1341–1347, the well-fortified town was captured by

John VI Kantakouzenos John VI Kantakouzenos or Cantacuzene (; ; – 15 June 1383) was a Byzantine Greek nobleman, statesman, and general. He served as grand domestic under Andronikos III Palaiologos and regent for John V Palaiologos before reigning as Byza ...

(r. 1341–1354), who appointed his son Matthew to rule over it and the surrounding province. Gratzianous remained the seat of Matthew and his family until 1355/56, when, after another civil war, he surrendered it and all his

Thracian The Thracians (; ; ) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied the area that today is shared between north-eastern Greece, ...

domains to

John V Palaiologos John V Palaiologos or Palaeologus (; 18 June 1332 – 16 February 1391) was Byzantine emperor from 1341 to 1391, with interruptions. His long reign was marked by constant civil war, the spread of the Black Death and several military defea ...

(r. 1341–1391) in exchange for the

Despotate of the Morea The Despotate of the Morea () or Despotate of Mystras () was a province of the Byzantine Empire which existed between the mid-14th and mid-15th centuries. Its territory varied in size during its existence but eventually grew to include almost a ...

Fortress

The ruins of the 14th-century fortress are preserved in a hill to the north of the modern village, near the river Patermos. The single wall is built using roughly hewn stone with mortar and brick fragments, as well as irregular brickwork. From north to south the fort has a span of over 250 feet, and features a tower on its eastern wall. Amidst the ruins of the fortress lies a more recent chapel dedicated to the

Life-giving Spring The Mother of God of the Life-giving Spring or Life-giving Font (, ; rus, Живоно́сный Исто́чник, Zhivonósny Istóchnik, ʐɨvɐˈnosnɨj ɪˈstotɕnʲɪk, links=y) is an epithet of the Holy Theotokos that originated with her ...

(''Zoodochos Pigi'') next to which lies a large rectangular

barrel vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

ed cistern. Image:20100419_Gratinh_Zwodoxou_Phgh_Ekklhsia_Oxyrwma_Thrace_Greece_1.jpg , The fort of Gratini Image:20100419_Gratinh_Zwodoxou_Phgh_Ekklhsia_Oxyrwma_Thrace_Greece_2.jpg , The eastern tower Image:20100410_Gratini_Church_Zoodohu_Pigis_Rhodope_Thrace_Greece_1.jpg , The chapel of the

(''Zoodochos Pigi'')

Dam

1.5 km northwest of the village lies the Gratini Dam. With a height of 45 m and a capacity of 18 million cubic meters, it serves the nearby power plant of the

Public Power Corporation The Public Power Corporation S.A. (, abbreviated PPC, or DEIInfoCuriaCommission of the European Communities v Hellenic Republic Case C-394/02, published 2 June 2005, accessed 5 October 2022) is the largest electric power company in Greece. PPC ...

People from Gratini

Archbishop Chrysanthus of Athens Archbishop Chrysanthus of Athens (; 1881 – 28 September 1949), born Charilaos Filippidis (), was the Archbishop of Athens and all Greece between 1938 and 1941. He was born in 1881 in Gratini, Thrace, then part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1903 ...

(1881–1940).

References

{{Komotini div Populated places in Rhodope (regional unit) Komotini Byzantine sites in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace