Mosynopolis ( el, Μοσυνόπολις), of which only ruins now remain in Greek

Thrace Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...

, was a city in the

Roman province The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') 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 rule ...

of Rhodope, which was known until the 9th century as Maximianopolis (Μαξιμιανούπολις) or, to distinguish it from other cities of the same name, as Maximianopolis in Rhodope.Aikaterini Balla, "Mosynopolis-Maximianoupolis"
/ref>

History

The city of Maximianopolis appears in written sources from the 4th century on. Its fortifications were renewed by

Byzantine emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as l ...

Justinian I Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovat ...

, and it was later a base for operations by Emperor Basil II in his wars against the

Bulgarians Bulgarians ( bg, българи, Bǎlgari, ) are a nation and South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and the rest of Southeast Europe. Etymology Bulgarians derive their ethnonym from the Bulgars. Their name is not complete ...

. In the 11th century, the city was the center of a district ('' bandon'') in the theme of Boleron, and Anna Komnene reports in her '' Alexiad'' that there were many Manichaeans living in Mosynopolis in the late 11th/early 12th centuries. The town was captured in 1185 by the

Normans The Normans ( Norman: ''Normaunds''; french: Normands; la, Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norse Viking settlers and indigenous West Franks and Gallo-Romans. T ...

, while the monk Ephrem says that the city was captured in 1190 by Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor. The Battle of Messinopolis, in which the Bulgarians 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. The fate of the town thereafter is somewhat obscure: it re-appears in 1317 as part of the theme of "Boleron and Mosynopolis", and its bishopric was still active, but the historian Catherine Asdracha, in her 1972 survey of the Rhodope area in the late Middle Ages, suggests that it never recovered from Kaloyan's sack and remained in ruins, proposing that it is to be identified with the town of Mesene, which the emperor and historian John VI Kantakouzenos reported as "destroyed many years ago". The town at some point had other names including Porsula or Porsulae, Corsulae, Impara and Pyrsoalis,

Ecclesiastical history

Bishops of Maximianopolis in Rhodope were present at the 5th and 6th-century ecumenical councils of

Ephesus Ephesus (; grc-gre, Ἔφεσος, Éphesos; tr, Efes; may ultimately derive from hit, 𒀀𒉺𒊭, Apaša) was a city in ancient Greece on the coast of Ionia, southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built i ...

(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. From the following century to the 12th, it appears with reduced status as a suffragan of

Trajanopolis in Rhodope Traianoupoli ( el, Τραϊανούπολη) or Traianopolis or Trajanopolis was a medieval settlement in the 14th century in the Evros regional unit of East Macedonia and Thrace region, northeastern Greece, nowadays named Loutra Traianopouleos. ...

. In the 13th century it became a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

bishopric. The see is mentioned under the name Mosynopolis also in the '' Notitiae Episcopatuum'' of

Leo the Wise Leo VI, called the Wise ( gr, Λέων ὁ Σοφός, Léōn ho Sophós, 19 September 866 – 11 May 912), was Byzantine Emperor from 886 to 912. The second ruler of the Macedonian dynasty (although his parentage is unclear), he was very well ...

, about 900; in that for 940; in that for 1170 under the name of Misinoupolis.Siméon Vailhé, "Mosynoupolis" in ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' (New York 1911)
/ref> 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.

Titular see

The bishopric is included in the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

's list of titular sees both as an archiepiscopal see under the name Maximianopolis in Rhodope and as a suffragan diocese of Mosynopolis subject to Trajanopolis in Rhodope.''Annuario Pontificio 2013'', p. 934 The diocese was nominally restored in 1933 as the Latin Catholic titular archbishopric Massimianopolis in Rhodope. It is vacant, having had a single incumbent of the intermediary (archiepiscopal) rank : * Adam Hefter (5 December 1939 – 9 January 1970), previously Bishop of Gurk (Austria) (26 December 1914 – 4 May 1939) and Titular Bishop of

Marciana Marciana is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Livorno, Tuscany (Italy), located in the western Elba Elba ( it, isola d'Elba, ; la, Ilva) is a Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino on the Italian ma ...

(4 May 1939 – 5 December 1939)

Photographs

Image:20100418_Maximianoupolis_Mosynopolis_Rhodope_Thrace_Greece_1.jpg , Fortress: a little south from the church. Image:20100418_Maximianoupolis_Mosynopolis_Rhodope_Thrace_Greece_3.jpg , A central plan church. Image:20100418_Maximianoupolis_Mosynopolis_Rhodope_Thrace_Greece_4.jpg , A central plan church. Image:20100418_Maximianoupolis_Mosynopolis_Rhodope_Thrace_Greece_5.jpg , A central plan church.

References

Source and External links