Porphyreon was a town 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 ...
of
Phoenice Prima
Phoenice ( ; ) was a province of the Roman Empire, encompassing the historical region of Phoenicia. It was officially created in 194 AD and after , Phoenice Syria was divided into Phoenice proper or Phoenice Paralia, and Phoenice Libanensis, a ...
, and a bishopric that was a
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 see
Metropolitan may refer to:
Areas and governance (secular and ecclesiastical)
* Metropolitan archdiocese, the jurisdiction of a metropolitan archbishop
** Metropolitan bishop or archbishop, leader of an ecclesiastical "mother see"
* Metropolitan ...
of that province,
Tyre. It corresponds to present-day
Jieh,
Lebanon
Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...
.
History
Porphyreon is described in the ''
Notitia Episcopatuum The ''Notitiae Episcopatuum'' (singular: ''Notitia Episcopatuum'') were official documents that furnished for Eastern countries the list and hierarchical rank of the metropolitan and suffragan bishoprics of a church.
In the Roman Church (the mos ...
'' of
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; , ) "Antioch on Daphne"; or "Antioch the Great"; ; ; ; ; ; ; . was a Hellenistic Greek city founded by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BC. One of the most important Greek cities of the Hellenistic period, it served as ...
as belonging to the sixth century, but does not appear in that of the tenth century.
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 ...
mentions five of its bishops:
*Thomas, 451;
*Alexander, at the end of the fifth century;
*Theodore, 518;
*Christophorus, 536;
*and Paul (contemporary of
Justinian II
Justinian II (; ; 668/69 – 4 November 711), nicknamed "the Slit-Nosed" (), was the last Byzantine emperor of the Heraclian dynasty, reigning from 685 to 695 and again from 705 to 711. Like his namesake, Justinian I, Justinian II was an ambitio ...
), 565-78.
There were two Porphyreons in this province. One, described by
Scylax north of
Sidon
Sidon ( ) or better known as Saida ( ; ) is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast in the South Governorate, Lebanon, South Governorate, of which it is the capital. Tyre, Lebanon, Tyre, t ...
and also by
Palerin of Bordeaux eight miles from Sidon, is now Jieh. A second Porphyreon, according to the
Pseudo-Antoninus, may be located six or seven miles north of
Carmel. Historians of the Crusades (
William of Tyre
William of Tyre (; 29 September 1186) was a Middle Ages, medieval prelate and chronicler. As Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tyre, archbishop of Tyre, he is sometimes known as William II to distinguish him from his predecessor, William I of Tyr ...
and
James of Vitry) confound this town with
Caipha; the latter corresponds to the see. In fact
Simeon Stylite the Young, contemporary of Paul, Bishop of Porphyreon, affirms that the episcopal town may be found near Castra, a place inhabited by the
Samaritans
Samaritans (; ; ; ), are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah that ...
. Now, in the same epoch the Pseudo-Antoninus locates the ''Castra Samaritanorum a Sucamina (Caipha) milliario subtus monte Carmelo'' south of Porphyreon.
The church of Porphyreon, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, was built by
Justinian I
Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...
. The ruins of Porphyreon should be found near
Belus, the
Nahr Namein, in the sands of which may still be seen the ''
murex brandaris'' and the ''
murex trunculus
''Hexaplex trunculus'' (previously known as ''Murex trunculus'', ''Phyllonotus trunculus'', or the banded dye-murex) is a medium-sized sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the murex shells or rock snails. It is include ...
'' (thorny shell fish), from which is extracted the famous purple dye of Tyre, and which gave its name to Porphyreon. The Napoleonic era map survey of
Pierre Jacotin
Pierre Jacotin (1765–1827) was the director of the Surveying, survey for the ''Carte de l'Égypte (Description de l'Égypte)'', the first triangulation-based map of Egypt, Syria and Palestine.
The maps were drafted in 1799–1800 during Napole ...
marks the ''Ruines de Porphyrion'' as being located a kilometre north-east of the ''grotte d'Elie'' (now the site of the
Stella Maris Monastery
The Stella Maris Monastery is a Catholic Christian monastery for Discalced Carmelite monks, located on the slopes of Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel.
The main church inside the Stella Maris Monastery is said to contain the Cave of Elijah, a grotto ...
).
Notes
References
;Attribution
*
External links
''Catholic Hierarchy'' page{Self-published source, date=June 2015
Catholic titular sees in Asia