Ibora was a city 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 ...

Helenopontus Pontus or Pontos (; ,) is a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in the modern-day eastern Black Sea region of Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region and its mountainous hinterland (rising to the Pontic Alps in th ...

, which became a Christian bishopric. It is now called İverönü, ErbaaHarvey D. Egan, ''An Anthology of Mysticism''
(Liturgical Press 1991 ), p. 43 in present-day

Tokat Province Tokat Province () is a province in northern Turkey. Its area is 10,042 km2, and its population is 596,454 (2022). Its adjacent provinces are Amasya to the northwest, Yozgat to the southwest, Sivas to the southeast, and Ordu to the northeast. ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. This is stated also by the ''

Annuario Pontificio The ''Annuario Pontificio'' ( Italian for ''Pontifical Yearbook'') is the annual directory of the Holy See of the Catholic Church. It lists the popes in chronological order and all officials of the Holy See's departments. It also provides nam ...

'', which lists the bishopric as a

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 ...

.''Annuario Pontificio 2013'' (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ), p. 907 The article by Siméon Vailhé in the 1910

Catholic Encyclopedia ''The'' ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'', also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedi ...

placed its site at modern Turhal in the same modern province.Siméon Vailhé, "Ibora" in ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' (New York 1910)
/ref>

History

Vailhé says that, according to some sources, the primitive name of the city was Gaziura, formerly a royal city, mentioned by

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

as deserted (XII, xv:

Dio Cassius Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history of ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...

, xxxv, 12). In fact a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

inscription, which dates from the time of

Mithridates VI of Pontus Mithridates or Mithradates VI Eupator (; 135–63 BC) was the ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia from 120 to 63 BC, and one of the Roman Republic's most formidable and determined opponents. He was an effective, ambitious, and r ...

, has been discovered on the rock of the fortress; a subterranean gallery, hewn from the rock, descends to the interior of the mountain and served perhaps as a secret depository for the royal treasures. Ibora was the home town of

Evagrius Ponticus Evagrius Ponticus (), also called Evagrius the Solitary (345–399 AD), was a Christian monk and ascetic from Heraclea, a city on the coast of Bithynia in Asia Minor. One of the most influential theologians in the late fourth-century church, ...

, the famous

Origen Origen of Alexandria (), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, Asceticism#Christianity, ascetic, and Christian theology, theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Early cent ...

ist ascetic of the 4th century, and was situated not far from Arnesi, the property of

Saint Basil Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great (330 – 1 or 2 January 379) was an early Roman Christian prelate who served as Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia from 370 until his death in 379. He was an influential theologian who suppor ...

, who led a religious life on the bank of the river

Iris Iris most often refers to: *Iris (anatomy), part of the eye * Iris (color), an ambiguous color term *Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess * ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants * Iris (given name), a feminine given name, and a list of peopl ...

with his friend

Saint Gregory Pope Gregory I (; ; – 12 March 604), commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great (; ), was the 64th Bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 until his death on 12 March 604. He is known for instituting the first recorded large-scale mission from Rom ...

and his sister Macrina. The correspondence of these two saints frequently mentions Ibora, which, according to

Procopius Procopius of Caesarea (; ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; ; – 565) was a prominent Late antiquity, late antique Byzantine Greeks, Greek scholar and historian from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman general Belisarius in Justinian I, Empe ...

(''Historia Arcana'', xviii), was destroyed by an

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

in the 6th century.

Bishops

Le Quien Michel Le Quien (8 October 1661, Boulogne-sur-Mer – 12 March 1733, Paris) was a French historian and theologian. Biography Le Quien studied at , Paris, and at twenty entered the Dominican convent in Faubourg Saint-Germain, where he made ...

(''Oriens Christ.'', I, 533) mentions seven bishops of Ibora, from the 4th to the 9th century. The bishopric was still active about the year 1170 under

Manuel Comnenus Manuel I Komnenos (; 28 November 1118 – 24 September 1180), Latinized as Comnenus, also called Porphyrogenitus (; " born in the purple"), was a Byzantine emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of ...

( Hierocles; Parthey, "Hieroclis Synecdemus," 108).

References

Roman towns and cities in Turkey Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey Populated places in ancient Pontus Catholic titular sees in Asia Former populated places in Turkey History of Tokat Province Populated places of the Byzantine Empire {{Tokat-geo-stub

History

Bishops

See also

References